THE "GOLDFISH" 

BEING THE CONFESSIONS 
OF A SUCCESSFUL MAN . 



"They're like 'goldfish' swimming round and round 
in a big bowl. They can look through, sort of dimly, 
but they can't get out." — Hastings. 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1914 



^-^ 



\^^<^'\ .^• 



^0*^ 



Copyright, 19 14, by 
The Century Co. 



Copyright, 1913, 1914, by 
The Curtis Publishing Company 



Published, April, 191 4 



APR 23 1914 



©C1,A369811 ^- 

*3^M ^ 



"'We have grown literally afraid to be 
poor. We despise any one who elects to be 
poor in order to simplify and save his inner 
life. We have lost the power of even imag- 
ining what the ancient idealization of pov- 
erty could have meant— the liberation from 
material attachments; the unbribed soul; the 
manlier indifference; the paying our way by 
what we are or do, and not by what we have ; 
the right to fling away our life at any moment 
irresponsibly— the more athletic trim, in short 
the moral fighting shape. ... It is certain 
that the prevalent fear of poverty among the 
educated class is the worst moral disease 
from which our civilization suffers.' " 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

MYSELF 3 

MY FRIENDS . 65 

MY CHILDREN 117 

MY MIND 164 

MY MORALS 2X8 

MY FUTURE 279 



THE "GOLDFISH" 



THE ''GOLDFISH" 

BEING THE CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL 

MAN 



CHAPTER I 

MYSELF 
"My house, my affairs, my ache and my religion — " 

I WAS fifty years old to-day. Half a century 
has hurried by since I first lay in my 
mother's wondering arms. To be sure, I am not 
old; but I can no longer deceive myself into be- 
lieving that I am still young. After all, the 
illusion of youth is a mental habit consciously 
encouraged to defy and face down the reality of 
age. If, at twenty, one feels that he has reached 
man's estate he, nevertheless, tests his strength and 
abilities, his early successes or failures, by the 
temporary and fictitious standards of youth. 
At thirty a professional man is younger than 

3 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

the business man of twenty-five. Less is ex- 
pected of him; his work is less responsible; he 
has not been so long on his job. At forty the 
doctor or lawyer may still achieve an unexpected 
success. He has hardly won his spurs, though in 
his heart he well knows his own limitations. He 
can still say: "I am young yet!" And he is. 

But at fifty ! Ah, then he must face the facts ! 
He either has or has not lived up to his expecta- 
tions and he never can begin over again. A crea- 
ture of physical and mental habit, he must for 
the rest of his life trudge along in the same path, 
eating the same food, thinking the same thoughts, 
seeking the same pleasures — ^until he acknowl- 
edges with grim reluctance that he is an old man. 

I confess that I had so far deliberately tried 
to forget my approaching fiftieth milestone, or 
at least to dodge it with closed eyes as I passed 
it by, that my daughter's polite congratulation 
on my demicentennial anniversary gave me an 
unexpected and most unpleasant shock. 

"You really ought to be ashamed of yourself !" 
she remarked as she joined me at breakfast. 

4 



MYSELF 

"Why?" I asked, somewhat resenting being 
thus definitely proclaimed as having crossed into 
the valley of the shadows. 

"To be so old and yet to look so young!" she 
answered, with charming savoir-faire. 

Then I knew the reason of my resentment 
against fate. It was because I was labeled as 
old while, in fact, I was still young. Of course 
that was it. Old*? Ridiculous! When my 
daughter was gone I gazed searchingly at myself 
in the mirror. Old? Nonsense! 

I saw a man with no wrinkles and only a few 
crow's-feet such as anybody might have had ; with 
hardly a gray hair on my temples and with not 
even a suggestion of a bald spot. My complexion 
and color were good and denoted vigorous health ; 
my flesh was firm and hard on my cheeks; my 
teeth were sound, even and white; and my eyes 
were clear save for a slight cloudiness round the 
iris. 

The only physical defect to which I was 
frankly willing to plead guilty was a flabbiness 
of the neck under the chin, which might by a 

5 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

hostile eye have been regarded as slightly double. 
For the rest I was strong and fairly well — not 
much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if 
occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a 
driver with a vigor and accuracy that placed me 
well out of the duffer class. 

Yes; I flattered myself that I looked like a boy 
of thirty, and I felt like one — except for things 
to be hereinafter noted — and yet middle-aged 
men called me "sir" and waited for me to sit down 
before doing so themselves; and my contem- 
poraries were accustomed to inquire jocularly 
after my arteries. I was fifty ! Another similar 
stretch of time and there would be no I. Twenty 
years more — with ten years of physical effective- 
ness if I were lucky! Thirty, and I would be 
useless to everybody. Forty — I shuddered. 
Fifty, I would not be there. My room would be 
vacant. Another face would be looking into the 
mirror. 

Unexpectedly on this legitimate festival of my 
birth a profound melancholy began to possess my 
spirit. I had lived. I had succeeded in the eyes 

6 



MYSELF 

of my fellows and of the general public. I was 
married to a charming woman. I had two mar- 
riageable daughters and a son who had already 
entered on his career as a lawyer. I was pros- 
perous. I had amassed more than a comfortable 
fortune. And yet — 

These things had all come, with a moderate 
amount of striving, as a matter of course. With- 
out them, undoubtedly I should be miserable; but 
with them — with reputation, money, comfort, 
affection — was I really happy *? I was obliged to 
confess I was not. Some remark in Charles 
Reade's Christie Johnstone came into my mind — 
not accurately, for I find that I can no longer re- 
member literally — to the effect that the only 
happy man is he who, having from nothing 
achieved money, fame and power, dies before 
discovering that they were not worth striving 
for. 

I put to myself the question : Were they worth 
striving for*? Really, I did not seem to be get- 
ting much satisfaction out of them. I began to 
be worried. Was not this an attitude of age^ 

7 



THE ^GOLDFISH" 

Was I not an old man, perhaps, regardless of my 
youthful face? 

At any rate, it occurred to me sharply, as I had 
but a few more years of effective life, did it not 
behoove me to pause and see, if I could, in what 
direction I was going *? — to "stop, look and lis- 
ten *?" — to take account of stock? — to form an idea 
of just what I was worth physically, mentally and 
morally? — to compute my assets and liabilities? 
— to find out for myself by a calm and dispas- 
sionate examination whether or not I was spirit- 
ually a bankrupt? That was the hideous thought 
which like a deathmask suddenly leered at me 
from behind the arras of my mind — that I counted 
for nothing — cared really for nothing! That 
when I died I should have been but a hole in the 
water I 

The previous evening I had taken my two dis- 
tinctly blase daughters to see a popular melo- 
drama. The great audience that packed the 
theater to the roof went wild, and my young 
ladies, infected in spite of themselves with the 
same enthusiasm, gave evidences of a quite ordi- 

8 



MYSELF 

nary variety of excitement; but I felt no thrill. 
To me the heroine was but a painted dummy 
mechanically repeating the lines that some Jew 
had written for her as he puffed a reeking 
cigar in his rear ofBce, and the villain but a popin- 
jay with a black whisker stuck on with a bit of 
pitch. Yet I grinned and clapped to deceive 
them, and agreed that it was the most inspiriting 
performance I had seen in years. 

In the last act there was a horserace cleverly 
devised to produce a convincing impression of 
reality. A rear section of the stage was made to 
revolve from left to right at such a rate that the 
horses were obliged to gallop at their utmost 
speed in order to avoid being swept behind the 
scenes. To enhance the realistic effect the scenery 
itself was made to move in the same direction. 
Thus, amid a whirlwind of excitement and the 
wild banging of the orchestra, the scenery flew 
by, and the horses, neck and neck, raced across 
the stage — without progressing a single foot. 

And the thought came to me as I watched them 
that, after all, this horserace was very much like 

9 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

the life we all of us were living here in the city. 
The scenery was rushing by, time was flying, the 
band was playing — while we, like the animals on 
the stage, were in a breathless struggle to attain 
some goal to which we never got any nearer. 

Now as I smoked my cigarette after breakfast 
I asked myself what I had to show for my fifty 
years. What goal or goals had I attained? Had 
anything happened except that the scenery had 
gone by? What would be the result should I 
stop and go with the scenery? Was the race 
profiting me anything? Had it profited anything 
to me or anybody else? And how far was I typi- 
cal of a class? 

A moment's thought convinced me that I was 
the prototype of thousands all over the United 
States. "A certain rich man !" That was me. I 
had yawned for years at dozens of sermons about 
men exactly like myself. I had called them 
twaddle. I had rather resented them. I was not 
a sinner — that is, I was not a sinner in the ordi- 
nary sense at all. I was a good man — a very 
good man. I kept all the commandments and I 

lo 



MYSELF 

acted in accordance with the requirements of every 
standard laid down by other men exactly like my- 
self. Between us, I now suddenly saw, we made 
the law and the prophets. We were all judging 
ourselves by selfmade tests. I was just like all 
the rest. What was true of me was true of them. 

And what were we, the crowning achievement 
of American civilization, like*? I had not thought 
of it before. Here, then, was a question the an- 
swer to which might benefit others as well as my- 
self. I resolved to answer it if I could — to write 
down in plain words and cold figures a truthful 
statement of what I was and what they were. 

I had been a fairly wide reader in my youth, 
and yet I did not recall anywhere precisely this 
sort of self- analysis. Confessions, so called, were 
usually amatory episodes in the lives of the au- 
thors, highly spiced and colored by emotions often 
not felt at the time, but rather inspired by mem- 
ory. Other analyses were the contented narra- 
tives of supposedly poverty-stricken people who 
pretended they had no desires in the world save 
to milk the cows and watch the grass grow. "Ad- 

11 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

ventures in contentment" interested me no more 
than adventures in unbridled passion. 

I was going to try and see myself as I was — 
naked. To be of the slightest value, everything 
I set down must be absolutely accurate and the 
result of faithful observation. I believed I was 
a good observer. I had heajd myself described 
as a "cold proposition," and coldness was a sine 
qua non of my enterprise. I must brief my case 
as if I were an attorney in an action at law. Or 
rather, I must make an analytical statement of 
fact like that which usually prefaces a judicial 
opinion. I must not act as a pleader, but first 
as a keen and truthful witness and then as an im- 
partial judge. And at the end I must either de- 
clare myself innocent or guilty of a breach of trust 
— pronounce myself a faithful or an unworthy 
servant. 

I must dispassionately examine and set forth 
the actual conditions of my home life, my busi- 
ness career, my social pleasures, the motives ani- 
mating myself, my family, my professional asso- 
ciates, and my friends — weigh our comparative 

12 



MYSELF 

influence for good or evil on the community and 
diagnose the general mental, moral and physical 
condition of the class to which I belonged. 

To do this aright, I must see clearly things as 
they were without regard to popular approval or 
prejudice, and must not hesitate to call them by 
their right names. I must spare neither myself 
nor anybody else. It would not be altogether 
pleasant. The disclosures of the microscope are 
often more terrifying than the amputations of the 
knife; but by thus studying both myself and my 
contemporaries I might perhaps arrive at the solu- 
tion of the problem that was troubling me — that 
is to say, why I, with every ostensible reason in 
the world for being happy, was not ! This, then, 
was to be my task. 

I have already indicated that I am a sound, 
moderately healthy, vigorous man, with a slight 
tendency to run to fat. I am five feet ten inches 
tall, weigh a hundred and sixty-two pounds, have 
gray eyes, a rather aquiline nose, and a close- 
clipped dark-brown mustache, with enough gray 

13 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

hairs in it to give it dignity. My movements are 
quick; I walk with a spring. I usually sleep, ex- 
cept when worried over business. I do not wear 
glasses and I have no organic trouble of which I 
am aware. The New York Life Insurance Com- 
pany has just reinsured me after a thorough physi- 
cal examination. My appetite for food is not 
particularly good, and my other appetites, in spite 
of my vigor, are by no means keen. Eating is 
about the most active pleasure that I can experi- 
ence; but in order to enjoy my dinner I have to 
drink a cocktail, and my doctor says that is very 
bad for my health. 

My personal habits are careful, regular and 
somewhat luxurious. I bathe always once and 
generally twice a day. Incidentally I am accus- 
tomed to scatter a spoonful of scented powder in 
the water for the sake of the odor. I like hot 
baths and spend a good deal of time in the Turkish 
bath at my club. After steaming myself for half 
an hour and taking a cold plunge, an alcohol rub 
and a cocktail, I feel younger than ever; but the 
sight of my fellow men in the bath revolts me. 

14 



MYSELF 

Almost without exception they have flabby, pen- 
dulous stomachs out of all proportion to the rest 
of their bodies. Most of them are bald and their 
feet are excessively ugly, so that, as they lie 
stretched out on glass slabs to be rubbed down with 
salt and scrubbed, they appear to be deformed. I 
speak now of the men of my age. Sometimes a boy 
comes in that looks like a Greek god ; but generally 
the boys are as weird-looking as the men. I am 
rambling, however. Anyhow I am less repulsive 
than most of them. Yet, unless the human race 
has steadily deteriorated, I am surprised that the 
Creator was not discouraged after his first at- 
tempt. 

I clothe my body in the choicest apparel that my 
purse can buy, but am careful to avoid the expres- 
sions of fancy against which Polonius warns us. 
My coats and trousers are made in London, and 
so are my underclothes, which are woven to order 
of silk and cotton. My shoes cost me fourteen 
dollars a pair; my silk socks, six dollars; my or- 
dinary shirts, five dollars; and my dress shirts, 
fifteen dollars each. On brisk evenings I wear to 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

dinner and the opera a mink-lined overcoat, for 
which my wife recently paid seven hundred and 
fifty dollars. The storage and insurance on this 
coat come to twenty-five dollars annually and the 
repairs to about forty-five. I am rather fond of 
overcoats and own half a dozen of them, all made 
in Inverness. 

I wear silk pajamas — ^pearl-gray, pink, buff and 
blue, with frogs, cuffs and monograms — which by 
the set cost me forty dollars. I also have a pair of 
pearl evening studs to wear with my dress suit, for 
which my wife paid five hundred and fifty dollars, 
and my cuff buttons cost me a hundred and sev- 
enty-five. Thus, if I am not an exquisite — which 
I distinctly am not — I am exceedingly well 
dressed, and I am glad to be so. If I did not have 
a fur coat to wear to the opera I should feel em- 
barrassed, out of place and shabby. All the men 
who sit in the boxes at the Metropolitan Opera 
House have fur overcoats. 

As a boy I had very few clothes indeed, and 
those I had were made to last a long time. But 
now without fine raiment I am sure I should be 

16 



MYSELF 

miserable. I cannot imagine myself shabby. Yet 
I can imagine any one of my friends being shabby 
without feeling any uneasiness about it — that is to 
say, I am the first to profess a democracy of spirit 
in which clothes cut no figure at all. I assert that 
it is the man, and not his clothes, that I value; 
but in my own case my silk-and-cotton undershirt 
is a necessity, and if deprived of it I should, I 
know, lose some attribute of self. 

At any rate, my bluff, easy, confident manner 
among my fellow men, which has played so im- 
portant a part in my success, would be impossible. 
I could never patronize anybody if my necktie 
were frayed or my sleeves too short. I know that 
my clothes are as much a part of my entity as my 
hair, eyes and voice — more than any of the rest of 
me. 

Based on the figures given above I am worth 
— the material part of me — as I step out of my 
front door to go forth to dinner, something over 
fifteen hundred dollars. If I were killed in 
a railroad accident all these things would be 
packed carefully in a box, inventoried, and given 

17 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

a much greater degree of attention than my mere 
body. I saw Napoleon's boots and waistcoat the 
other day in Paris and I felt that he himself must 
be there in the glass case beside me. 

Any one who at Abbotsford has felt of the white 
beaver hat of Sir Walter Scott knows that he has 
touched part — and a very considerable part — of 
Sir Walter. The hat, the boots, the waistcoat are 
far less ephemeral than the body they protect, and 
indicate almost as much of the wearer's character 
as his hands and face. So I am not ashamed of 
my silk pajamas or of the geranium powder I 
throw in my bath. They are part of me. 

But is this "me" limited to my body and my 
clothes'? I drink a cup of coffee or a cocktail: 
after they are consumed they are part of me; are 
they not part of me as I hold the cup or the glass 
in my hand*? Is my coat more characteristic of 
me than my house — ^my sleevelinks than my wife 
or my collie dog*? I know a gentlewoman whose 
sensitive, quivering, aristocratic nature is expressed 
far more in the Russian wolfhound that shrinks 
always beside her than in the aloof, though charm- 

18 



MYSELF 

ing, expression of her face. No; not only my 
body and my personal effects but everything that 
is mine is part of me — ^my chair with the rubbed 
arm; my book, with its marked pages; my office; 
my bank account, and in some measure my friend 
himself. 

Let us agree that m the widest sense all that I 
have, feel or think is part of me — either of my 
physical or mental being; for surely my thoughts 
are more so than the books that suggest them, and 
my sensations of pleasure or satisfaction equally 
so with the dinner I have eaten or the cigar I have 
smoked. My ego is the sum total of all these 
things. And if the cigar is consumed, the dinner 
digested, the pleasure flown, the thought forgotten, 
the waistcoat or shirt discarded — so, too, do the tis- 
sues of the body dissolve, disintegrate and change. 
I can no more retain permanently the physical ele- 
ments of my personality than I can the mental or 
spiritual. 

What, then, am I — who, the Scriptures assert, 
am made in the image of God? Who and what 
is this being that has gradually been evolved dur- 

19 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

ing fifty years of life and which I call Myself? 
For whom my father and my mother, their fathers 
and mothers, and all my ancestors back through the 
gray mists of the forgotten past, struggled, starved, 
labored, suffered, and at last died. To what end 
did they do these things'? To produce me"? 
God forbid! 

Would the vision of me as I am to-day have in- 
spired my grandfather to undergo, as cheerfully as 
he did, the privations and austerities of his long 
and arduous service as a country clergyman — or 
my father to die at the head of his regiment at 
Little Round Top ^ What am I — what have I 
ever done, now that I come to think of it, to de- 
serve those sacrifices'? Have I ever even incon- 
venienced myself for others in any way'? Have 
I ever repaid this debt'? Have I in turn ad- 
vanced the flag that they and hundreds of thou- 
sands of others, equally unselfish, carried for- 
ward *? 

Have I ever considered my obligation to those 
who by their patient labors in the field of scientific 
discovery have contributed toward my well-being 

20 



MYSELF 

and the very continuance of my life? Or have I 
been content for all these years to reap where I 
have not sown*? To accept, as a matter of course 
and as my due, the benefits others gave years of 
labor to secure for me*? It is easy enough for me 
to say : No — that I have thought of them and am 
grateful to them. Perhaps I am, in a vague fash- 
ion. But has whatever feeling of obligation I 
may possess been evidenced in my conduct to- 
ward my fellows? 

I am proud of my father's heroic death at 
Gettysburg; in fact I am a member, by virtue of 
his rank in the Union Army, of what is called The 
Loyal Legion. But have I ever fully considered 
that he died for me? Have I been loyal to him? 
Would he be proud or otherwise — is he proud or 
otherwise of me, his son? That is a question I 
can only answer after I have ascertained just what 
I am. 

Now for over quarter of a century I have 
worked hard — harder, I believe, than most men. 
From a child I was ambitious. As a boy, people 
would point to me and say that I would get ahead. 

21 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

Well, I have got ahead. Back in the town where 
I was born I am spoken of as a "big man." Old 
men and women stop me on the main street and 
murmur: "If only your father could see you 
now!" They all seem tremendously proud of 
me and feel confident that if he could see me he 
would be happy for evermore. And I know they 
are quite honest about it all. For they assume 
in their simple hearts that my success is a 
real success. Yet I have no such assurance 
about it. 

Every year I go back and address the gradu- 
ating class in the high school — the high school I 
attended as a boy. And I am "Exhibit A" — the 
tangible personification of all that the fathers and 
mothers hope their children will become. It is 
the same way with the Faculty of my college. 
They have given me an honorary degree and I have 
given them a drinking fountain for the campus. 
We are a mutual-admiration society. 

I am always picked by my classmates to preside 
at our reunions, for I am the conspicuous, shining 
example of success among them. They are proud 

22 



MYSELF 

of me, without envy. "Well, old man," they 
say, "you've certainly made a name for yourself I" 
They take it for granted that, because I have made 
money and they read my wife's name in the society 
columns of the New York papers, I must be com- 
pletely satisfied. 

And in a way I am satisfied with having 
achieved that material success which argues the 
possession of brains and industry; but the en- 
comiums of the high-school principal and the con- 
gratulations of my college mates, sincere and well- 
meaning as they are, no longer quicken my blood ; 
for I know that they are based on a total ignor- 
ance of the person they seek to honor. They see 
a heavily built, well-groomed, shrewd-looking 
man, with clear-cut features, a ready smile, and a 
sort of brusque frankness that seems to them the 
index of an honest heart. They hear him speak 
in a straight- for ward, direct way about the "Old 
Home," and the "Dear Old College," and "All 
Our Friends" — quite touching at times, I assure 
you — and they nod and say, "Good fellow, this ! 
No frills — straight from the heart ! No wonder 

23 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

he has got on in the city I Sterling chap ! Hur- 
rah!" 

Perhaps, after all, the best part of me comes 
out on these occasions. But it is not the me that 
I have worked for half a century to build up ; it is 
rather what is left of the me that knelt at my 
mother's side forty years ago. Yet I have no 
doubt that, should these good parents of mine see 
how I live in New York, they would only be the 
more convinced of the greatness of my success — 
the success to achieve which I have given the un- 
remitting toil of thirty years. 

And as I now clearly see that the results of this 
striving and the objects of my ambition have been 
largely, if not entirely, material, I shall take the 
space to set forth in full detail just what this ma- 
terial success amounts to, in order that I may the 
better determine whether it has been worth strug- 
gling for. Not only are the figures that follow 
accurate and honest but I am inclined to believe 
that they represent the very minimum of ex- 
penditure in the class of New York families to 

24 



MYSELF 

which mine belongs. They may at first sight 
seem extravagant; but if the reader takes the trou- 
ble to verify them — as I have done, alas! many 
times to my own dismay and discouragement — he 
will find them economically sound. This, then, 
is the catalogue of my success. 

I possess securities worth about seven hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars and I earn at my pro- 
fession from thirty to forty thousand dollars a 
year. This gives me an annual income of from 
sixty-five thousand to seventy-five thousand dol- 
lars. In addition I own a house on the sunny side 
of an uptown cross street near Central Park which 
cost me, fifteen years ago, one hundred and twenty 
thousand dollars, and is now worth two hundred 
and fifty thousand. I could sell it for that. The 
taxes alone amount to thirty-two hundred dollars 
— the repairs and annual improvements to about 
twenty-five hundred. As the interest on the 
value of the property would be twelve thousand 
five hundred dollars it will be seen that merely 
to have a roof over my head costs me annually 
over eighteen thousand dollars. 

25 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

My electric-light bills are over one hundred dol- 
lars a month. My coal and wood cost me even 
more, for I have two furnaces to heat the house, 
an engine to pump the water, and a second range in 
the laundry. One man is kept busy all the time 
attending to these matters and cleaning the win- 
dows. I pay my butler eighty dollars a month; 
my second man fifty-five; my valet sixty; my 
cook seventy; the two kitchen maids twenty-five 
each ; the head laundress forty-five ; the two second 
laundresses thirty-five each ; the parlor maid thirty ; 
the two housemaids twenty-five each; my wife's 
maid thirty-five; my daughters' maid thirty; the 
useful man fifty; the pantry maid twenty-five. 
My house payroll is, therefore, six hundred and 
fifty dollars a month, or seventy-eight hundred a 
year. 

We could not possibly get along without every 
one of these servants. To discharge one of them 
would mean that the work would have to be done 
in some other way at a vastly greater expense. 
Add this to the yearly sum represented by the 
house itself, together with the cost of heating and 

26 



MYSELF 

lighting, and you have twenty-eight thousand 
four hundred dollars. 

Unforeseen extras make this, in fact, nearer 
thirty thousand dollars. There is usually some 
alteration under way, a partition to be taken out, 
a hall to be paneled, a parquet floor to be relaid, 
a new sort of heating apparatus to be installed, 
and always plumbing. Generally, also, at least 
one room has to be done over and refurnished 
every year, and this is an expensive matter. The 
guest room, recently refurnished in this way 
at my daughter's request, cost thirty-seven hun- 
dred dollars. Since we average not more than 
two guests for a single night annually, their visits 
from one point of view will cost me this year 
eighteen hundred and fifty dollars apiece. 

Then, too, styles change. There is always new 
furniture, new carpets, new hangings — ^pictures to 
be bought. Last season my wife changed the 
drawing room from Empire to Louis Seize at a 
very considerable outlay. 

Our food, largely on account of the number of 
our servants, costs us from a thousand to twelve 

27 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

hundred dollars a month. In t±Le spring and au- 
tumn it is a trifle less — in winter it is frequently 
more; but it averages, with wine, cigars, ice, spring 
water and sundries, over fifteen thousand dollars 
a year. 

We rent a house at the seashore or in the coun- 
try in summer at from five to eight thousand dol- 
lars, and usually find it necessary to employ a 
couple of men about the place. 

Our three saddle-horses cost us about two thou- 
sand dollars for stabling, shoeing and incidentals; 
but they save me at least that in doctors' bills. 

Since my wife and daughters are fond of society, 
and have different friends and different nightly en- 
gagements, we are forced to keep two motors and 
two chauffeurs, one of them exclusively for night- 
work. I pay these men one hundred and twenty- 
five dollars each a month, and the garage bill is 
usually two hundred and fifty more, not counting 
tires. At least one car has to be overhauled every 
year at an average expense of from two hundred 
and fifty to five hundred dollars. Both cars have 
to be painted annually. My motor service win- 

28 



MYSELF 

ter and summer costs on a conservative estimate 
at least eight thousand dollars. 

I allow my wife five thousand dollars; my 
daughters three thousand each ; and my son, who is 
not entirely independent, twenty-five hundred. 
This is supposed to cover everything; but it does 
not — it barely covers their bodies. I myself ex- 
pend, having no vices, only about twenty-five 
hundred dollars. 

The bills of our family doctor, the specialists 
and the dentist are never less than a thousand 
dollars, and that is a minimum. They would 
probably average more than double that. 

Our spring trip to Paris, for rest and clothing, 
has never cost me less than thirty-five hundred dol- 
lars, and when it comes to less than five thousand 
it is inevitably a matter of mutual congratulation. 

Our special entertaining, our opera box, the 
theater and social frivolities aggregate no in- 
considerable sum, which I will not overestimate at 
thirty-five hundred dollars. 

Our miscellaneous subscriptions to charity and 
the like come to about fifteen hundred dollars. 

29 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

The expenses already recited total nearly 
seventy-five thousand dollars, or as much as my 
maximum income. And this annual budget con- 
tains no allowance for insurance, books, losses at 
cards, transportation, sundries, the purchase of new 
furniture, horses, automobiles, or for any of that 
class of expenditure usually referred to as "prin- 
cipal" or "plant." I inevitably am obliged to 
purchase a new motor every two or three years — 
usually for about six thousand dollars; and, as I 
have said, the furnishing of our city house is never 
completed. 

It is a fact that for the last ten years I have 
found it an absolute impossibility to get along 
on seventy-five thousand dollars a year, even liv- 
ing without apparent extravagance. I do not run 
a yacht or keep hunters or polo ponies. My wife 
does not appear to be particularly lavish and con- 
tinually complains of the insufficiency of her al- 
lowance. Our table is not Lucullan, by any 
means; and we rarely have game out of season, 
hothouse fruit or many flowers. Indeed, there is 
an elaborate fiction maintained by my wife, cook 

30 



MYSELF 

and butler that our establishment is run economic- 
ally and strictly on a business basis. Perhaps it 
is. I hope so. I do not know anything about it. 
Anyhow, here is the smallest budget on which I 
can possibly maintain my household of five 
adults : 

ANNUAL BUDGET— MINIMUM— FOR FAMILY 
OF FIVE PERSONS 

Taxes on city house $ 3,200 

Repairs, improvements and minor alterations. . . 2,500 

Rent of country house — average 7^000 

Gardeners and stablemen, and so on 800 

Servants' payroll 7,800 

Food supplies 15,000 

Light and heat — gas, electricity, coal and wood 2,400 

Saddle-horses — board and so on 2,000 

Automobile expenses 8,000 

Wife's allowance — emphatically insufficient .... 5,000 

Daughters' allowance — two 6,000 

Son's allowance 2,500 

Self — clubs, clothes, and so on 2,500 

Medical attendance — including dentist . 1,000 

Charity 1,500 

Travel — wife's annual spring trip to Paris 3,500 

Opera, theater, music, entertaining at restau- 
rants, and so on 3,500 

Total $74,200 

31 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

A fortune in itself, you may say! Yet judged 
by the standards of expenditure among even the 
unostentatiously wealthy in New York it is mod- 
erate indeed. A friend of mine who has only 
recently married glanced over my schedule and 
said, "Why, it's ridiculous, old man! No one 
could live in New York on any such sum." 

Any attempt to "keep house" in the old-fash- 
ioned meaning of the phrase would result in 
domestic disruption. No cook who was not al- 
lowed to do the ordering would stay with us. It 
is hopeless to try to save money in our domestic 
arrangements. I have endeavored to do so once 
or twice and repented of my rashness. One can- 
not live in the city without motors, and there is 
no object in living at all if one cannot keep up 
a scale of living that means comfort and lack of 
worry in one's household. 

The result is that I am always pressed for money 
even on an income of seventy-five thousand dollars. 
And every year I draw a little on my capital. 
Sometimes a lucky stroke on the market or an un- 
expected fee evens things up or sets me a little 

32 



MYSELF 

ahead; but usually January first sees me selling a 
few bonds to meet an annual deficit. Needless to 
say, I pay no personal taxes. If I did I might as 
well give up the struggle at once. When I write 
it all down in cold words I confess it seems ridic- 
ulous. Yet my family could not be happy living 
in any other way. 

It may be remarked that the item for charity on 
the preceding schedule is somewhat disproportion- 
ate to the amount of the total expenditure. I of- 
fer no excuse or justification for this. I am 
engaged in an honest exposition of fact — for my 
own personal satisfaction and profit, and for what 
lessons others may be able to draw from it. My 
charities are negligible. 

The only explanation which suggests itself to 
my mind is that I lead so circumscribed and 
guarded a life that these matters do not obtrude 
themselves on me. I am not brought into contact 
with the maimed, the halt and the blind ; if I were 
I should probably behave toward them like a gen- 
tleman. The people I am thrown with are all 
sleek and well fed; but even among those of my 

33 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

friends who make a fad of charity I have never 
observed any disposition to deprive themselves of 
luxuries for the sake of others. 

Outside of the really poor, is there such a thing 
as genuine charity among us? The church cer- 
tainly does not demand anything approximating 
self-sacrifice. A few dollars will suffice for any 
appeal. I am not a professing Christian, but 
the church regards me tolerantly and takes 
my money when it can get it. But how little 
it gets! I give frequently — almost constantly — 
but in most instances my giving is less an act of 
benevolence than the payment of a tax upon my 
social standing. I am compelled to give. If I 
could not be relied upon to take tickets to charity 
entertainments and to add my name to the sub- 
scription lists for hospitals and relief funds I 
should lose my caste. One cannot be too cold a 
proposition. I give to these things grudgingly 
and because I cannot avoid it. 

Of course the aggregate amount thus disposed 
of is really not large and I never feel the loss of it. 
Frankly, people of my class rarely inconvenience 

34 



MYSELF 

themselves for the sake of anybody, whether their 
own immediate friends or the sick, suffering and 
sorrowful. It is trite to say that the clerk earn- 
ing one thousand dollars deprives himself of more 
in giving away fifty than the man with an income 
of twenty thousand dollars in giving away five 
thousand. It really costs the clerk more to go 
down into his pocket for that sum than the rich 
man to draw his check for those thousands. 

Where there is necessity for generous and im- 
mediate relief I occasionally, but very rarely, con- 
tribute two hundred and fifty or five hundred 
dollars. My donation is always known and 
usually is noticed with others of like amount 
in the daily papers. I am glad to give the 
money and I have a sensation of making a sub- 
stantial sacrifice in doing so. Obviously, how- 
ever, it has cost me really nothing! I spend 
two hundred and fifty dollars or more every week 
or so on an evening's entertainment for fifteen or 
twenty of my friends and think nothing of it. It 
is part of my manner of living, and my manner of 
living is an advertisement of my success — and ad- 

35 



THE ^GOLDFISH" 

vertising in various subtle ways is a business neces- 
sity. Yet if I give two hundred and fifty dollars 
to a relief fund I have an inflation of the heart and 
feel conscious of my generosity. 

I can frankly say, therefore, that so far as I am 
concerned my response to the ordinary appeal for 
charity is purely perfunctory and largely, if not 
entirely, dictated by policy; and the sum total of 
my charities on an income of seventy-five thousand 
dollars a year is probably less than fifteen hundred 
dollars, or about two per cent. 

Yet, thinking it over dispassionately, I do not 
conclude from this that I am an exceptionally self- 
ish man. I believe I represent the average in this 
respect. I always respond to minor calls in 
a way that pleases the recipient and causes a 
genuine glow of satisfaction in my own breast. I 
toss away nickels, dimes and quarters with prodi- 
gality; and if one of the ofHce boys feels out of 
sorts I send him off for a week's vacation on full 
pay. I make small loans to seedy fellows who 
have known better days and I treat the servants 
handsomely at Christmas. 

36 



MYSELF 

I once sent a boy to college — that is, I promised 
him fifty dollars a year. He died in his junior 
term, however. Sisters of Mercy, the postman, a 
beggar selling pencils or shoelaces — almost any- 
body, in short, that actually comes within range — 
can pretty surely count on something from me. 
But, I confess I never go out of my way to look 
for people in need of help. I have not the 
time. 

Several of the items in my budget, how- 
ever, are absurdly low, for the opera-box which, as 
it is, we share with several friends and which is 
ours but once in two weeks, alone costs us twelve 
hundred dollars; and my bill at the Ritz — where 
we usually dine before going to the theater or sup 
afterward — is apt to be not less than one hundred 
dollars a month. Besides, twenty-five hundred 
dollars does not begin to cover my actual personal 
expenses; but as I am accustomed to draw checks 
against my office account and thrust the money in 
my pocket, it is difficult to say just what I do cost 
myself. 

Moreover, a New York family like mine would 
37 



THE "GOLDFISW 

have to keep surprisingly well in order to get along 
with but two thousand dollars a year for doctors. 
Even our dentist bills are often more than that. 
We do not go to the most fashionable operators 
either. There does not seem to be any particular 
way of finding out who the good ones are except 
by experiment. I go to a comparatively cheap 
one. Last month he looked me over, put in two 
tiny fillings, cleansed my teeth and treated my 
gums. He only required my presence once for 
half an hour, once for twenty minutes, and twice 
for ten minutes — on the last two* occasions he 
filched the time from the occupant of his other 
chair. My bill was forty-two dollars. As he 
claims to charge a maximum rate of ten dollars an 
hour — which is about the rate for ordinary legal 
services — I have spent several hundred dollars' 
worth of my own time trying to figure it all out. 
But this is nothing to the expense incident to the 
straightening of children's teeth. 

When I was a child teeth seemed to take care of 
themselves, but my boy and girls were all obliged 
to spend several years with their small mouths full 

38 



MYSELF 

of plates, wires and elastic bands. In each case 
the cost was from eighteen hundred to two thou- 
sand dollars. A friend of mine with a large fam- 
ily was compelled to lay out during the tooth-grow- 
ing period of his offspring over five thousand 
dollars a year for several years. Their teeth are 
not straight at that. 

Then, semioccasionally, weird cures arise and 
seize hold of the female imagination and send our 
wives and daughters scurrying to the parlors of 
fashionable specialists, who prescribe long periods 
of rest at expensive hotels — a room in one's own 
house will not do — and strange diets of mush and 
hot water, with periodical search parties, lighted 
by electricity, through the alimentary canal. 

One distinguished medico's discovery of the 
terra incognita of the stomach has netted him, I 
am sure, a princely fortune. There seems to 
be something peculiarly fascinating about the 
human interior. One of our acquaintances be- 
came so interested in hers that she issued en- 
graved invitations for a fashionable party at 
which her pet doctor delivered a lecture on the 

39 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

gastro-intestinal tract. All this comes high, and 
I have not ventured to include the cost of such ex- 
travagances in my budget, though my wife has 
taken cures six times in the last ten years, either at 
home or abroad. 

And who can prophesy the cost of the annual 
spring jaunt to Europe? I have estimated it at 
thirty-five hundred dollars; but, frankly, I never 
get off with any such trifling sum. Our passage 
alone costs us from seven hundred to a thousand 
dollars, or even more; and our ten-days' motor 
trip — the invariable climax of the expedition ren- 
dered necessary by the fatigue incident to shopping 
— at least five hundred dollars. 

Our hotel bills in Paris, our taxicabs, theater 
tickets, and dinners at expensive restaurants cost 
us at least a thousand dollars, without estimating 
the total of those invariable purchases that are 
paid for out of the letter of credit and not charged 
to my wife's regular allowance. Even in Paris 
she will, without a thought, spend fifty dollars at 
Reboux' for a simple spring hat — and this is not 
regarded as expensive. Her dresses cost as much 

40 



MYSELF 

as if purchased on Fifth Avenue and I am obliged 
to pay a sixty per cent duty on them besides. 

The restaurants of Paris — the chic ones — charge 
as much as those in New York; in fact, chic Paris 
exists very largely for the exploitation of the wives 
of rich Americans. The smart French woman 
buys no such dresses and pays no such prices. She 
knows a clever little modiste down some alley 
leading off the Rue St. Honore who will saunter 
into Worth's, sweep the group of models with her 
eye, and go back to her own shop and turn out the 
latest fashions at a quarter of the money. 

A French woman in society will have the same 
dress made for her by her own dressmaker for sev- 
enty dollars for which an American will cheerfully 
pay three hundred and fifty. And the reason 
is, that she has been taught from girlhood the rela- 
tive values of things. She knows that mere 
clothes can never really take the place of charm 
and breeding; that expensive entertainments, no 
matter how costly and choice the viands, can never 
give equal pleasure with a cup of tea served with 
vivacity and wit; and that the best things of Paris 

41 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

are, in fact, free to all alike — the sunshine of the 
boulevards, the ever-changing spectacle of the 
crowds, the glamour of the evening glow beyond 
the Hotel des Invalides, and the lure of the lamp- , 
strewn twilight of the Champs Elysees. 

So she gets a new dress or two and, after the 
three months of her season in the Capital are over, 
is content to lead a more or less simple family life 
in the country for the rest of the year. One rarely 
sees a real Parisian at one of the highly advertised 
all-night resorts of Paris. No Frenchman would 
pay the price. 

An acquaintance of mine took his wife and a 
couple of friends one evening to what is known as 
L'Abbaye, in Montmartre. Knowing that it had 
a reputation for being expensive, he resisted, some- 
what self-consciously, the delicate suggestions of 
the head waiter and ordered only one bottle of 
champagne, caviar for four, and a couple of cigars. 
After watching the dancing for an hour he called 
for his bill and found that the amount was two 
hundred and fifty francs. Rather than be con- 
spicuous he paid it — foolishly. But the American 

42 



MYSELF 

who takes his wife abroad must have at least one 
vicarious taste of fast life, no matter what it costs, 
and he is a lucky fellow who can save anything 
out of a bill of exchange that has cost him five 
thousand dollars. 

After dispassionate consideration of the matter 
I hazard the sincere opinion that my actual dis- 
bursements during the last ten years have averaged 
not less than one hundred thousand dollars a year. 
However, let us be conservative and stick to our 
original figure of seventy-five thousand dollars. 
It costs me, therefore, almost exactly two hundred 
dollars a day to support five persons. We all of 
us complain of what is called the high cost of liv- 
ing, but men of my class have no real knowledge 
of what it costs them to live. 

The necessaries are only a drop in the bucket. 
It is hardly worth while to bother over the price 
of rib roast a pound, or fresh eggs a dozen, when 
one is smoking fifty-cent cigars. Essentially it 
costs me as much to lunch off a boiled egg, served 
in my dining room at home, as to carve the breast 
off a canvasback. At the end of the month my 

43 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

bills would not show the difference. It is the over- 
head — or, rather, in housekeeping, the underground 
— charge that counts. That boiled egg or the can- 
vasback represents a running expense of at least 
a hundred dollars a day. Slight variations in the 
cost of foodstuffs or servants' wages amount to 
practically nothing. 

And what do I get for my two hundred dollars 
a day and my seventy-five thousand dollars a year 
that the other fellow does not enjoy for, let us say, 
half the money*? Let us readjust the budget with 
an idea to ascertaining on what a family or five 
could live in luxury in the city of New York 
a year. I could rent a good house for five thou- 
sand dollars and one in the country for two thou- 
sand dollars; and I would have no real-estate 
taxes. I could keep eight trained servants for three 
thousand dollars and reduce the cost of my sup- 
plies to five thousand almost without knowing it. 
Of course my light and heat would cost me twelve 
hundred dollars and my automobile twenty-five 
hundred. My wife, daughters and son ought to 
be able to manage to dress on five thousand dollars, 

44 



MYSELF 

among them. I could give away fifteen hundred 
dollars and allow one thousand for doctors' bills, 
fifteen hundred for my own expenses, and still 
have twenty-three hundred for pleasure — and be 
living on thirty thousand dollars a year in luxury. 
I could even then entertain, go to the theater, 
and occasionally take my friends to a restaurant. 
And what would I surrender^ My saddle-horses, 
my extra motor, my pretentious houses, my opera 
box, my wife's annual spending bout in Paris — 
that is about all. And I would have a cash bal- 
ance of forty-five thousand dollars. 

Revised Budget 

Rent — city and country $7,000 

Servants , 3,000 

Supplies , 5,000 

Light and heat 1,200 

Motor 2,500 

Allowance to family 5,000 

Charity 1,500 

Medical attendance 1,000 

Self 1,500 

Travel, pleasure, music and sundries 2,300 

Total $30,000 

45 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

In a smaller city I could do the same thing for 
half the money — fifteen thousand dollars; in 
Rome, Florence or Munich I could live like a 
prince on half the sum. I am paying appar- 
ently forty-five thousand dollars each year for the 
veriest frills of existence — for geranium powder in 
my bath, for fifteen extra feet in the width of my 
drawing room, for a seat in the parterre instead of 
the parquet at the opera, for the privilege of hav- 
ing a second motor roll up to the door when it is 
needed, and that my wife may have seven new 
evening dresses each winter instead of two. And 
in reality these luxuries mean nothing to me. I 
do not want them. I am not a whit more comfort- 
able with than without them. 

If an income tax should suddenly cut my bank 
account in half it would not seriously incon- 
venience me. No financial cataclasm, however 
dire, could deprive me of the genuine luxuries of 
my existence. Yet in my revised schedule of ex- 
penditure I would still be paying nearly a hun- 
dred dollars a day for the privilege of living. 
What would I be getting for my money — even 

46 



MYSELF 

then'? What would I receive as a quid pro quo 
for my thirty thousand dollars'? 

I am not enough of a materialist to argue that 
my advantage over my less successful fellow man 
lies in having a bigger house, men servants instead 
of maid servants, and smoking cigars alleged to 
be from Havana instead of from Tampa; but I 
believe I am right in asserting that my social op- 
portunities — in the broader sense — are vastly 
greater than his. I am meeting bigger men and 
have my fingers in bigger things. I give orders 
and he takes them. 

My opinion has considerable weight in impor- 
tant matters, some of which vitally affect large 
communities. My astuteness has put millions into 
totally unexpected pockets and defeated the fault- 
ily expressed intentions of many a testator. I can 
go to the White House and get an immediate hear- 
ing, and I can do more than that with judges of 
the Supreme Court in their private chambers. 

In others words I am an active man of affairs, a 
man among men, a man of force and influence, 
who, as we say, ''cuts ice" in the metropolis. But 

47 



THE ^'GOLDFISH'' 

the economic weakness in the situation lies in the 
fact that a boiled egg only costs the ordinary citi- 
zen ten cents and it costs me almost its weight in 
gold. 

Compare this de-luxe existence of mine with 
that of my forebears. We are assured by most 
biographers that the subject of their eulogies was 
born of poor but honest parents. My own parents 
were honest, but my father was in comfortable cir- 
cumstances and was able to give me the advantages 
incident to an education, first at the local high 
school and later at college. I did not as a boy get 
up while it was still dark and break the ice in the 
horsetrough in order to perform my ablutions. I 
was, to be sure, given to understand — and al- 
ways when a child religiously believed — that this 
was my father's unhappy fate. It may have been 
so, but I have a lingering doubt on the subject that 
refuses to be dissipated. I can hardly credit the 
idea that the son of the village clergyman was 
obliged to go through any such rigorous physical 
discipline as a child. 

48 



MYSELF 

Even in 1820 there were such things as hired 
men and tradition declares that the one in my 
grandparents' employ was known as Jonas, had 
but one good eye and was half-witted. It mod- 
estly refrains from asserting that he had only one 
arm and one leg. My grandmother did the cook- 
ing — her children the housework; but Jonas was 
their only servant, if servant he can be called. It 
is said that he could perform wonders with an ax 
and could whistle the very birds off the trees. 

Some time ago I came upon a trunkful of letters 
written by my grandfather to my father in 1835, 
when the latter was in college. They were closely 
written with a fine pen in a small, delicate hand, 
and the lines of ink, though faded, were like steel 
engraving. They were stilted, godly — in an in- 
genuous fashion — at times ponderously humorous, 
full of a mild self-satisfaction, and inscribed under 
the obvious impression that only the writer could 
save my father's soul from hell or his kidneys from 
destruction. The goodness of the Almighty, as 
exemplified by His personal attention to my 
grandfather, the efficacy of oil distilled from the 

49 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

liver of the cod, and the wisdom of Solomon, came 
in for an equal share of attention. How the good 
old gentleman must have enjoyed writing those 
letters! And, though I have never written my 
own son three letters in my life, I suppose the 
desire of self-expression is stirring in me now these 
seventy-eight years later. I wonder what he 
would have said could he read these confessions of 
mine — ^he who married my grandmother on a capi- 
tal of twenty-five dollars and enough bleached 
cotton to make half a dozen shirts! My annual 
income would have bought the entire county in 
which he lived. 

My son scraped through Harvard on twenty- 
five hundred dollars a year. I have no doubt that 
he left undisclosed liabilities behind him. Most 
of this allowance was spent on clothes, private 
commons and amusement. Lying before me is my 
father's term bill at college for the first half year 
of 1835. The items are: 

To tuition $12.00 

Room rent 3.00 

Use of University Library 1.00 

50 



MYSELF 

Servants' hire, printing, and so on $ 2.00 

Repairs 80 

Damage for glass 09 

Commons bill, 15^^ weeks at $1.62 a week 25.11 

Steward's salary 2.00 

Public fuel 50 

Absent from recitation without excuse — once 03 

Total $46.53 

The glass damage at nine cents and the three 
cents for absence without excuse give me joy. 
Father was human, after all ! 

Economically speaking, I do not think that his 
clothes cost him anything. He wore my grand- 
father's old ones. There were no amusements in 
those days, except going to see the pickled curios 
in the old Boston Museum. I have no doubt he 
drove to college in the family chaise — if there 
was one. I do not think that, in fact, there 
was. 

On a conservative estimate he could not have 
cost my grandfather much, if anything, over a hun- 
dred dollars a year. On this basis I could, on my 
present income, send seven hundred and fifty f ath- 

51 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

ers to college annually ! A curious thought, is it 
not? 

Undoubtedly my grandfather went barefoot and 
trudged many a weary mile, winter and summer, 
to and from the district school. He worked his 
way through college. He married and reared a 
family. He educated my father. He watched 
over his flock in sickness and in health, and he 
died at a ripe old age, mourned by the entire coun- 
tryside. 

My father, in his turn, was obliged to carve out 
his own fate. He left the old home, moved to the 
town where I was born, and by untiring industry 
built up a law practice which for those days was as- 
tonishingly lucrative. Then, as I have said, the 
war broke out and, enlisting as a matter of course, 
he met death on the battlefield. During his com- 
paratively short life he followed the frugal habits 
acquired in his youth. He was a simple man. 

Yet I am his son ! What would he say could 
he see my valet, my butler, my French cook"? 
Would he admire and appreciate my paintings, my 
objets d'art^ my rugs and tapestries, my rare old 

52 



MYSELF 

furniture? As an intelligent man he would un- 
doubtedly have the good taste to realize their value 
and take satisfaction in their beauty ; but would he 
be glad that I possessed them? That is a ques- 
tion. Until I began to pen these confessions I 
should have unhesitatingly answered it in the af- 
firmative. Now I am inclined to wonder a little. 
I think it would depend on how far he believed 
that my treasures indicated on my own part a gen- 
uine love of art, and how far they were but the evi- 
dences of pomp and vainglory. 

Let me be honest in the matter. I own some 
masterpieces of great value. At the time of their 
purchase I thought I had a keen admiration for 
them. I begin to suspect that I acquired them 
less because I really cared for such things than be- 
cause I wished to be considered a connoisseur. 
There they hang — ^my Corots, my Romneys, my 
Teniers, my Daubignys. But they might as well 
be the merest chromos. I never look at them. I 
have forgotten that they exist. So have the rest 
of my family. 

It is the same way with my porcelains and tapes- 

53 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

tries. Of course they go to make up the tout en- 
semble of a harmonious and luxurious home, but 
individually they mean nothing to me. I should 
not miss them if they were all swept out of exist- 
ence tomorrow by a fire. I am no happier in my 
own house than in a hotel. My pictures are noth- 
ing but so much furniture requiring heavy insur- 
ance. 

It is somewhat the same with our cuisine. My 
food supply costs me forty dollars a day. We use 
the choicest teas, the costliest caviar and relishes, 
the richest sterilized milk and cream, the freshest 
eggs, the choicest cuts of meat. We have course 
after course at lunch and dinner; yet I go to the 
table without an appetite and my food gives me 
little pleasure. But this style of living is the con- 
crete expression of my success. Because I have 
risen above my fellows I must be surrounded by 
these tangible evidences of prosperity. 

I get up about nine o'clock in the morning un- 
less I have been out very late the night before, in 
which case I rest until ten or later. I step into a 

54 



MYSELF 

porcelain tub in which my servant has drawn a 
warm bath of water filtered by an expensive proc- 
ess which makes it as clear and blue as crystal. 
When I leave my bath my valet hands me one by 
one the garments that have been carefully laid out 
in order. He is always hovering round me, and I 
rather pride myself on the fact that I lace my own 
shoes and brush my own hair. Then he gives me 
a silk handkerchief and I stroll into my upstairs 
sitting room ready for breakfast. 

My daughters are still sleeping. They rarely 
get up before eleven in the morning, and 
my wife and I do not, as a rule, breakfast to- 
gether. We have tried that arrangement and 
found it wanting, for we are slightly irritable at 
this hour. My son has already gone downtown. 
So I enter the chintz-furnished room alone and sit 
down by myself before a bright wood fire and 
glance at the paper, which the valet has ironed, 
while I nibble an egg, drink a glass of orange juice, 
swallow a few pieces of toast and quaff a great cup 
of fragrant coffee. 

Coffee ! Goddess of the nerve-exhausted ! Sweet 
55 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

invigorator of tired manhood I Savior of the 
American race I I could not live without you! 
One draft at your Pyrenean fountain and I am 
young again ! For a moment the sun shines as it 
used to do in my boyhood's days; my blood quick- 
ens; I am eager to be off to business — to do, no 
matter what. 

I enter the elevator and sink to the ground floor. 
My valet and butler are waiting, the former with 
my coat over his arm, ready to help me into it. 
Then he hands me my hat and stick, while the 
butler opens the front door and escorts me 
to my motor. The chauffeur touches his hat. 
I light a small and excellent Havana cigar 
and sink back among the cushions. The interior 
of the car smells faintly of rich upholstery and vio- 
let perfume. My daughters have been to a ball 
the night before. If it is fine I have the landau- 
lette hood thrown open and take the air as far as 
Washington Square — if not, I am deposited at the 
Subway. 

Ten o'clock sees me at my office. The effect of 
the coffee has begun to wear off slightly. I am a 
little peevish with my secretary, who has opened 

56 



MYSELF 

and arranged all my letters on my desk. There 
are a pile of dividend checks, a dozen appeals for 
charity and a score of letters relating to my busi- 
ness. I throw the begging circulars into the waste- 
basket and dictate most of my answers in a little 
over half an hour. Then come a stream of ap- 
pointments until lunchtime. 

On the top floor of a twenty-story building, its 
windows commanding a view of all the waters sur- 
rounding the end of Manhattan Island, is my 
lunch club. Here gather daily at one o'clock most 
of the men with whom I am associated — ^bankers, 
railroad promoters and other lawyers. I lunch 
with one or more of them. A cocktail starts my 
appetite, for I have no desire for food; and for the 
sake of appearances I manage to consume an egg 
Benedictine and a ragout of lamb, with a des- 
sert. 

Then we wander into the smoking room and 
drink black coffee and smoke long black cigars. I 
have smoked a cigar or two in my office already 
and am beginning, as usual, to feel a trifle seedy. 
Here we plan some piece of business or devise a 

57 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

method of escaping the necessity of fulfilling some 
corporate obligation. 

Two or half-past finds me in my office again. 
The back of the day is broken. I take things 
more easily. Later on I smoke another cigar. I 
discuss general matters with my junior partners. 
At half-past four I enter my motor, which is wait- 
ing at the Wall Street entrance of the building. 
At my uptown club the men are already dropping 
in and gathering round the big windows. We all 
call each other by our first names, yet few of us 
know anything of one another's real character. 
We have a bluff heartiness, a cheerful cynicism 
that serves in place of sincerity, and we ask no 
questions. 

Our subjects of conversation are politics, the 
stock market, "big" business, and the more fashion- 
able sports. There is no talk of art or books, no 
discussion of subjects of civic interest. After our 
cocktails we usually arrange a game of bridge and 
play until it is time to go home to dress for dinner. 

Until this time, usually, I have not met my 
wife and daughters since the night before. They 

58 



MYSELF 

have had their own individual engagements for 
luncheon and in the afternoon, and perhaps have 
not seen each other before during the day. But 
we generally meet at least two or three times a 
week on the stairs or in the hall as we are going 
out. Sometimes, also, I see my son at this time. 

It will be observed that our family life is not 
burdensome to any of us : — ^not that we do not wish 
to see one another, but we are too busy to do so. 
My daughters seem to be fond of me. They are 
proud of my success and their own position ; in fact 
they go out in the smartest circles. They are 
smarter, indeed, than their mother and myself; for, 
though we know everybody in society, we have 
never formed a part of the intimate inner New- 
port circle. But my daughters are inside and in 
the very center of the ring. You can read their 
names as present at every smart function that 
takes place. 

From Friday until Monday they are always in 
the country at week-end parties. They are in- 
vited to go to Bermuda, Palm Beach, California, 
Aiken and the Glacier National Park. They live 

59 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

on yachts and in private cars and automobiles. 
They know all the patter of society and everything 
about everybody. They also talk surprisingly 
well about art, music and international politics. 
They are as much at home in Rome, Paris and Lon- 
don as they are in New York, and are as familiar 
with Scotland as Long Island. They constantly 
amaze me by the apparent scope of their informa- 
tion. 

They are women of the world in a sense unheard 
of by my father's generation. They have been 
presented at court in London, Berlin and Rome, 
and have had a social season at Cairo ; in fact I feel 
at a great personal disadvantage in talking with 
them. They are respectful, very sweet in a self- 
controlled and capable sort of way, and, so far as 
I can see, need no assistance in looking out for 
themselves. They seem to be quite satisfied with 
their mode of life. They do as they choose, and 
ask for no advice from either their mother or my- 
self. 

My boy also leads his own life. He is rarely 
at home except to sleep. I see less of him than of 

60 



MYSELF 

my daughters. During the day he is at the of- 
fice, where he is learning to be a lawyer. At wide 
intervals we lunch together; but I find that he is 
interested in things which do not appeal to me at 
all. Just at present he has become an expert — al- 
most a professional — dancer to syncopated music. 
I hear of him as dancing for charity at public en- 
tertainments, and he is in continual demand for 
private theatricals and parties. He is astonish- 
ingly clever at it. 

Yet I cannot imagine Daniel Webster or Rufus 
Choate dancing in public even in their leisure mo- 
ments. Perhaps, however, it is better for him to 
dance than to do some other things. It is good ex- 
ercise; and, to be fair with him, I cannot imagine 
Choate or Webster playing bridge or taking 
scented baths. But, frankly, it is a far cry from 
my clergyman grandfather to my ragtime dancing 
offspring. Perhaps, however, the latter will serve 
his generation in his own way. 

It may seem incredible that a father can be such 
a stranger to his children, but it is none the less a 
fact. I do not suppose we dine together as a 

61 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

family fifteen times in the course of the winter. 
When we do so we get along together very nicely, 
but I find myself conversing with my daughters 
much as if they were women I had met casually 
out at dinner. They are literally "perfect 
ladies." 

When they were little I was permitted a certain 
amount of decorous informality, but now I have 
to be very careful how I kiss them on account of 
the amount of powder they use. They have, both 
of them, excellent natural complexions, but they 
are not satisfied unless their noses have an arti- 
ficial whiteness like that of marble. I suspect, 
also, that their lips have a heightened color. 
At all events I am careful to "mind the 
paint." But they are — either because of these 
things or in spite of them — extraordinarily pretty 
girls — ^prettier, I am forced to admit, than their 
mother was at their age. Now, as I write, I won- 
der to what end these children of mine have 
been bom into the world — how they will as- 
sist in the development of the race to a higher 
level. 

62 



MYSELF 

For years I slaved at the office — early, late, in 
the evenings, often working Sundays and holi- 
days, and forgoing my vacation in the sum- 
mer. 

Then came the period of expansion. My accu- 
mulations doubled and trebled. In one year I 
earned a fee in a railroad reorganization of two 
hundred thousand dollars. I found myself on 
Easy Street. I had arrived — achieved my success. 
During all those years I had devoted myself ex- 
clusively to the making of money. Now I simply 
had to spend it and go through the motions of con- 
tinuing to work at my profession. 

My wife and I became socially ambitious. She 
gave herself to this end eventually with the same 
assiduity I had displayed at the law. It is sur- 
prising at the present time to recall that it was not 
always easy to explain the ultimate purpose in 
view. Alas! What is it now'? Is it other than 
that expressed by my wife on the occasion when 
our youngest daughter rebelled at having to go to 
a children's party? 

"Why must I go to parties?" she insisted. 

63 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"In order," replied her mother, "that you may 
be invited to other parties." 

It was the unconscious epitome of my consort's 
theory of the whole duty of man. 



64 



CHAPTER II 

MY FRIENDS 

BY virtue of my being a successful man my 
family has an established position in New 
York society. We are not, to be sure — at least, 
my wife and I are not — a part of the sacrosanct 
fifty or sixty who run the show and perform in the 
big ring; but we are well up in the front of the 
procession and occasionally do a turn or so in one 
of the side rings. We give a couple of dinners 
each week during the season and a ball or two, be- 
sides a continuous succession of opera and theater 
parties. 

Our less desirable acquaintances, and those to- 
ward whom we have minor social obligations, my 
wife disposes of by means of an elaborate *'at 
home," where the inadequacies of the orchestra are 
drowned in the roar of conversation, and which a 
sufficient number of well-known people are good- 
natured enough to attend in order to make the 

65 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

others feel that the occasion is really smart and 
that they are not being trifled with. This method 
of getting rid of one's shabby friends and their 
claims is, I am informed, known as "killing them 
off with a tea." 

We have a slaughter of this kind about once in 
two years. In return for these courtesies we are 
invited yearly by the elite to some two hundred 
dinners, about fifty balls and dances, and a large 
number of miscellaneous entertainments such as 
musicales, private theatricals, costume affairs, 
bridge, poker, and gambling parties; as well 
as in the summer to clambakes — where champagne 
and terrapin are served by footmen — and other 
elegant rusticities. 

Besides these chic functions we are, of course, 
deluged with invitations to informal meals with 
old and new friends, studio parties, afternoon 
teas, highbrow receptions and conversaziones^ 
reformers' lunch parties, and similar festivities. 
We have cut out all these long ago. Keeping up 
with our smart acquaintances takes all our energy 
and available time. There are several old friends 

66 



MY FRIENDS 

of mine on the next block to ours whom I have 
not met socially for nearly ten years. 

We have definitely arrived however. There 
is no question about that. We are in society and 
entitled to all the privileges pertaining thereto. 
What are they? you ask. Why, the privilege 
of going to all these balls, concerts and dinners, 
of course; of calling the men and women one 
reads about in the paper by their first names; of 
having the satisfaction of knowing that everybody 
who knows anything knows we are in society ; and 
of giving our daughters and son the chance to 
enjoy, without any effort on their part, these same 
privileges that their parents have spent a life of 
effort to secure. 

Incidentally, I may add, our offspring will, 
each of them — if I am not very much mistaken — 
marry money, since I have observed a certain 
frankness on their part in this regard, which seems 
to point that way and which, if not admirable in 
itself, at least does credit to their honesty. 

Now it is undubitably the truth that my 
wife regards our place among the socially elect as 

67 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

the crowning achievement — the great desideratum 
— of our joint career. It is what we have always 
been striving for. Without it we — ^both of us — 
would have unquestionably acknowledged failure. 
My future, my reputation, my place at the bar 
and my domestic life would have meant nothing 
at all to us, had not the grand cordon of suc- 
cess been thrown across our shoulders by soci- 
ety. 

As I have achieved my ambition in this re- 
spect it is no small part of my self-imposed task 
to somewhat analyze this, the chief reward of my 
devotion to my profession, my years of industrious 
application, my careful following of the paths 
that other successful Americans have blazed for 
me. 

I must confess at the outset that it is ofttimes 
difficult to determine where the pleasure ends and 
work begins. Even putting it in this way, I fear 
I am guilty of a euphemism; for, now that I con- 
sider the matter honestly, I recall no real pleasure 
or satisfaction derived from the various entertain- 

68 



MY FRIENDS 

ments I have attended during the last fivG or ten 
years. 

In the first place I am invariably tired when I 
come home at night — less perhaps from the actual 
work I have done at my office than from the 
amount of tobacco I have consumed and the 
nervous strain attendant on hurrying from one 
engagement to another and keeping up the affec- 
tation of hearty good-nature which is part of my 
stock in trade. At any rate, even if my body is 
not tired, my head, nerves and eyes are distinctly 
so. 

I often feel, when my valet tells me that the 
motor is ordered at ten minutes to eight, that I 
would greatly enjoy having him slip into the dress- 
clothes he has so carefully laid out on my bed and 
go out to dinner in my place. He would doubt- 
less make himself quite as agreeable as I. And 
then — let me see — what would I do? I sit with 
one of my accordion-plaited silk socks half on and 
surrender myself to all the delights of the most 
reckless imagination! 

Yes, what would I choose if I could do any- 

69 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

thing in the world for the next three hours? 
First, I think, I would like an egg — a poached egg, 
done just right, like a little snowball, balanced 
nicely in the exact center of a hot piece of toast! 
My mouth waters. Aunt Jane used to do them 
like that. And then I would like a crisp piece of 
gingerbread and a glass of milk. Dress? Not 
on your life! Where is that old smoking- jacket 
of mine? Not the one with Japanese embroidery 
on it — ^no; the old one. Given away? I groan 
aloud. 

Well, the silk one will have to do — and a pair 
of comfortable slippers ! Where is that old brier 
pipe I keep to go a-fishing? Now I want a book 
— full of the sea and ships — of pirates and coral 
reefs — yes. Treasure Island ; of course that 's it — 
and Long John Silver and the Black Spot. 

"Beg pardon, sir, but madam has sent me up 
to say the motor is waiting," admonishes my Eng- 
lish footman respectfully. 

Gone — gone is my poached egg^ my pipe, my 
dream of the Southern Seas! I dash into my 
evening clothes under the solicitous guidance of 

70 



MY FRIENDS 

my valet and hastily descend in the electric ele- 
vator to the front hall. My wife has already 
taken her seat in the motor, with an air of right- 
eous annoyance, of courteously suppressed irrita- 
tion. The butler is standing on the doorstep. 
The valet is holding up my fur coat expectantly. 
I am sensible of an atmosphere of sad reproach- 
fulness. 

Oh, well! I thrust my arms into my coat, 
grasp my white gloves and cane, receive my hat 
and wearily start forth on my evening's task of 
being entertained; conscious as I climb into the 
motor that this curious form of so-called amuse- 
ment has certain rather obvious limitations. 

For what is its raison d'etre*? It is obvious that 
if I know any persons whose society and conver- 
sation are likely to give me pleasure I can invite 
them to my own home and be sure of an evening's 
quiet enjoyment. But, so far as I can see, my 
wife does not invite to our house the people who 
are likely to give either her or myself any pleas- 
ure at all, and neither am I likely to meet such 
people at the homes of my friends. 

71 . 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

The whole thing is a mystery governed by 
strange laws and curious considerations of which 
I am kept in utter ignorance; in fact, I rarely 
know where I am going to dine until I arrive at 
the house. On several occasions I have come away 
without having any very clear idea as to where 
I have been. 

"The Hobby-Smiths," my wife will whisper 
as we go up the steps. "Of course you 've heard 
of her! She is a great friend of Marie Van 
Duser, and her husband is something in Wall 
Street." 

That is a comparatively illuminating descrip- 
tion. At all events it insures some remote social 
connection with ourselves, if only through Miss 
Van Duser and Wall Street. Most of our hosts 
are something in Wall Street. Occasionally they 
are something in coal, iron, oil or politics. 

I find a small envelope bearing my name on a 
silver tray by the hatstand and open it suspiciously 
as my wife is divested of her wraps. Inside is a 
card bearing in an almost illegible scrawl the 
words : Mrs. Jones. I hastily refresh my recol- 

72 



MY FRIENDS 

lection as to all the Joneses of my acquaintance, 
whether in coal, oil or otherwise; but no likely 
candidate for the distinction of being the hus- 
band of my future dinner companion comes to 
my mind. Yet there is undoubtedly a Jones. 
But; no I The lady may be a divorcee or a widow. 
I recall no Mrs. Jones, but I visualize various 
possible Miss Joneses — ladies very fat and burst- 
ing; ladies scrawny, lean and sardonic; facetious 
ladies; heavy, intelligent ladies; aggressive, mili- 
tant ladies. 

My spouse has turned away from the mirror 
and the butler has pulled back the portieres lead- 
ing into the drawing room. I follow my wife's 
composed figure as she sweeps toward our much- 
beplumed hostess and find myself in a roomful 
of heterogeneous people, most of whom I have 
never seen before and. whose personal appearance 
is anything but encouraging. 

'This is very nice!" says our hostess — accent 
on the nice. 

"So nice of you to think of us!" answers my 
wife. 

73 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

We shake hands and smile vaguely. The but- 
ler rattles the portieres and two more people 
come in. 

"This is very nice!" says the hostess again^ — 
accent on the is. 

It may be here noted that at the conclusion of 
the evening each guest murmurs in a simpering, 
half-persuasive yet consciously deprecatory man- 
ner — as if apologizing for the necessity of 
so bald a prevarication — "Good-night ! We have 
had such a good time! ^o good of you to ask 
us!" This epilogue never changes. Its phrase 
is cast and set. The words may vary slightly, 
but the tone, emphasis and substance are invi- 
olable. Yet, disregarding the invocation good- 
night ! the fact remains that neither have you had 
a good time nor was your host in any way good or 
kind in asking you. 

Returning to the moment at which you have 
made your entrance and been received and passed 
along, you gaze vaguely round you at the other 
guests, greeting those you know with exaggerated 
enthusiasm and being the conscious subject of 

74 



MY FRIENDS 

whispered criticism and inquiry on the part of 
the others. You make your way to the side of a 
lady whom you have previously encountered at a 
similar entertainment and assert your delight at 
revamping the fatuous acquaintanceship. Her 
facetiousness is elephantifie, but the relief of con- 
versation is such that you laugh loudly at her 
witticisms and simper knowingly at her platitudes 
— both of which have now been current for several 
months. 

The edge of your delight is, however, somewhat 
dulled by the discovery that she is the lady whom 
fate has ordained that you shall take in to dinner 
— a matter of which you were sublimely uncon- 
scious owing to the fact that you had entirely 
forgotten her name. As the couples pair off to 
march to the dining room and the combinations of 
which you may form a possible part are reduced 
to a scattering two or three, you realize with a 
shudder that the lady beside you is none other 
than Mrs. Jones — and that for the last ten min- 
utes you have been recklessly using up the even- 
ing's conversational ammunition. 

75 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

With a sinking heart you proffer your arm, 
wondering whether it will be possible to get 
through the meal and preserve the fiction of in- 
terest. You wish savagely that you could turn 
on her and exclaim honestly : 

"Look here, my good woman, you are all right 
enough in your own way, but we have nothing in 
common; and this proposed evening of enforced 
companionship will leave us both exhausted and 
ill-tempered. We shall grin and shout meaning- 
less phrases over the fish, entree and salad about 
life, death and the eternal verities; but we shall 
be sick to death of each other in ten minutes. 
Let 's cut it out and go home I" 

You are obliged, however, to escort your mid- 
dle-aged comrade downstairs and take your seat 
beside her with a flourish, as if you were playing 
Rudolph to her Flavia. Then for two hours, 
with your eyes blinded by candlelight and elec- 
tricity, you eat recklessly as you grimace first 
over your left shoulder and then over your right. 
It is a foregone conclusion that you will have a 
headache by the time you have turned, with a sen- 

76 



MY FRIENDS 

sation of momentary relief, to your "fair com- 
panion" on the other side. 

Have you enjoyed yourself? Have you been 
entertained? Have you profited? The ques- 
tions are utterly absurd. You have suffered. 
You have strained your eyes, overloaded your 
stomach, and wasted three hours during which 
you might have been recuperating from your day's 
work or really amusing yourself with people you 
like. 

This entirely conventional form of amusement 
is, I am told, quite unknown in Europe. There 
are, to be sure, occasional formal banquets, which 
do not pretend to be anything but formal. A 
formal banquet would be an intense relief, after 
the heat, noise, confusion and pseudo-informality 
of a New York dinner. The European is puzzled 
and baffled by one of our combined talk-and-eat- 
ing bouts. 

A nobleman from Florence recently said to 
me: 

"At home, when we go to other people's houses 
it is for the purpose of meeting our own friends 

77 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

or our friend's friends. We go after our evening 
meal and stay as long as we choose. Some light 
refreshment is served, and those who wish to do so 
smoke or play cards. The old and the young 
mingle together. It is proper for each guest 
to make himself agreeable to all the others. We 
do not desire to spend money or to make a 
fete. At the proper times we have our balls and 
festas. 

"But here in New York each night I have been 
pressed to go to a grand entertainment and eat a 
huge dinner cooked by a French chef and served 
by several men servants, where I am given one lady 
to talk to for several hours. I must converse with 
no one else, even if there is a witty, beautiful and 
charming woman directly opposite me; and as I 
talk and listen I must consume some ten or twelve 
courses or fail to do justice to my host's hospi- 
tality. I am given four or five costly wines, 
caviar, turtle soup, fish, mousse, a roast, partridge, 
pate de fois gras, glaces, fruits, bonbons, and 
cigars costing two francs each. Not to eat and 
drink would be to insult the friend who is paying 

78 



MY FRIENDS 

at least forty or fifty francs for my dinner. But 
I cannot enjoy a meal eaten in such haste and I 
cannot enjoy talking to one strange lady for so 
long. 

"Then the men retire to a chamber from which 
the ladies are excluded. I must talk to some 
man. Perhaps I have seen an attractive woman 
I wish to meet. It is hopeless. I must talk to 
her husband ! At the end of three-quarters of an 
hour the men march to the drawing room, and 
again I talk to some one lady for half an hour and 
then must go home! It may be only half-past 
ten o'clock, but I have no choice. Away I must 
go. I say good-night. I have eaten a huge din- 
ner; I have talked to one man and three ladies; 
I have drunk a great deal of wine and my head 
is very tired. 

"Nineteen other people have had the same ex- 
perience, and it has cost my host from five hun- 
dred to a thousand francs — or, as you say here, 
from one hundred to two hundred dollars. And 
why has he spent this sum of money*? Pardon 
me, my friend, if I say that it could be disbursed 

79 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

to much better advantage. Should my host come 
to Florence I should not dare to ask him to dinner, 
for we cannot afford to have these elaborate func- 
tions. If he came to my house he would have to 
dine en famille. Here you feast every night in 
the winter. Why? Every day is not a feast 
day!" 

I devote space and time to this subject com- 
mensurate with what seems to me to be its impor- 
tance. Dining out is the metropolitan form of 
social entertainment for the well-to-do. I go to 
such affairs at least one hundred nights each year. 
That is a large proportion of my whole life and 
at least one-half of all the time at my disposal for 
recreation. So far as I can see, it is totally use- 
less and a severe drain on one's nervous centers. 
It has sapped and is sapping my vitality. Dur- 
ing the winter I am constantly tired. My head 
aches a large part of the time. I can do only a 
half — and on some days only a third — as much 
work as I could at thirty-five. 

I wake with a thin, fine line of pain over my 
right eye, and a heavy head. A strong cup of 

80 



MY FRIENDS 

coffee sets me up and I feel better; but as the 
morning wears on, especially if I am nervous, the 
weariness in my head returns. By luncheon time 
I am cross and upset. Often by six o'clock I have 
a severe sick headache. When I do not have a 
headache I am usually depressed; my brain feels 
like a lump of lead. And I know precisely the 
cause : It is that I do not give my nerve-centers 
sufficient rest. If I could spend the evenings — or 
half of them — quietly I should be well enough; 
but after I am tired out by a day's work I come 
home only to array myself to go out to saw social 
wood. 

I never get rested ! My head gets heavier and 
heavier and finally gives way. There is no imme- 
diate cause. It is the fact that my nervous sys- 
tem gets more and more tired without any adequate 
relief. The feeling of complete restedness, so far 
as my brain is concerned, is one I almost never ex- 
perience. When I do wake up with my head 
clear and light my heart sings for joy. My effec- 
tiveness is impaired by weariness and overeating, 
through a false effort at recuperation. I have 

81 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

known this for a long time, but I have seen no 
escape from it. 

Social life is one of the objects of living in 
New York; and social life to ninety per cent of 
society people means nothing but eating one an- 
other's dinners. Men never pay calls or go to 
teas. The dinner, which has come to mean a 
heavy, elaborate meal, eaten amid noise, laughter 
and chatter, at great expense, is the expression of 
our highest social aspirations. Thus it would 
seem, though I had not thought of it before, that 
I work seven or eight hours every day in order to 
make myself rather miserable for the rest of the 
time. 

"I am going to lie down and rest this after- 
noon," my wife will sometimes say. "We're 
dining with the Robinsons." 

Extraordinary that pleasure should be so ex- 
hausting as to require rest in anticipation ! Din- 
ing with these particular and other in-general 
Robinsons has actually become a physical feat of 
endurance — a tour de force, like climbing the 
Matterhorn or eating thirteen pounds of beefsteak 

82 



MY FRIENDS 

at a sitting. Is it a reminiscence of those dim 
centuries when our ancestors in the forests of the 
Elbe sat under the moss-hung oaks and stuffed 
themselves with roast ox washed down with huge 
skins of wine^ Or is it a custom born of those 
later days when, round the blazing logs of Cana- 
dian campfires, our Indian allies gorged them- 
selves into insensibility to the sound of the tom- 
tom and the chant of the medicine-man — the lat- 
ter quite as indispensable now as then? 

If I should be called on to explain for what 
reason I am accustomed to eat not wisely but too 
well on these joyous occasions, I should be some- 
what at a loss for any adequate reply. Perhaps 
the simplest answer would be that I have just im- 
bibed a cocktail and created an artificial appetite. 
It is also probable that, in my efforts to appear 
happy and at ease, to play my part as a connoisseur 
of good things, and to keep the conversational ball 
in the air, I unconsciously lose track of the num- 
ber of courses I have consumed. 

It is also a matter of habit. As a boy I was 
compelled to eat everything on my plate; and as 

83 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

I grew older I discovered that in our home town 
it was good manners to leave nothing undevoured 
and thus pay a concrete tribute to the culinary 
ability of the hostess. Be that as it may, I have 
always liked to eat. It is almost the only thing left 
that I enjoy; but, even so, my palate requires the 
stimulus of gin. I know that I am getting fat. 
My waistcoats have to be let out a little more 
every five or six months. Anyhow, if the men 
did not do their part there would be little object 
for giving dinner parties in these days when slen- 
der women are the fashion. 

After the long straight front and the habit back, 
social usage is frowning on the stomach, hips and 
other heretofore not unadmired evidences of robust 
nutrition. Temperance, not to say total absti- 
nence, has become de rigueur among the ladies. 
My dinner companion nibbles her celery, tastes 
the soup, waves away fish, entree and roast, pecks 
once or twice at the salad, and at last consumes 
her ration of ice-cream with obvious satisfaction. 
If there is a duck — well, she makes an exception 
in the case of duck — at six dollars and a half a 

84 



MY FRIENDS 

pair. A couple of hothouse grapes and she is 
done. 

It will be observed that this gives her all the 
more opportunity for conversation — a doubtful 
blessing. On the other hand, there is an equiva- 
lent economic waste. I have no doubt each guest 
would prefer to have set before her a chop, a 
baked potato and a ten-dollar goldpiece. It 
would amount to the same thing, so far as the 
host is concerned. 

I had, until recently, assumed with some bitter- 
ness that my dancing days were over. My wife 
and I went to balls, to be sure, but not to dance. 
We left that to the younger generation, for the 
reason that my wife did not care to jeopardize her 
attire or her complexion. She was also conscious 
of the fact that the variety of waltz popular thirty 
years ago was an oddity, and that a middle-aged 
woman who went hopping and twirling about a 
ballroom must be callous to the amusement that 
followed her gyrations. 

With the advent of the turkey trot and the 

85 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

tango, things have changed however. No one is 
too stout, too old or too clumsy to go walking 
solemnly round, in or out of time to the music. 
I confess to a consciousness of absurdity when, to 
the exciting rhythm of Tres Moutard, I back Mrs. 
Jones slowly down the room and up again. 

"Do you grapevine?" she inquires ardently. 
Yes; I admit the soft impeachment, and at once 
she begins some astonishing convolution with the 
lower part of her body, which I attempt to fol- 
low. After several entanglements we move tri- 
umphantly across the hall. 

"How beautifully you dance!" she pants. 

Aged roisterer that I am, I fall for the compli- 
ment. She is a nice old thing, after all ! 

"Fish walk?" asks she. 

I retort with total abandon. 

"Come along!" 

So, grabbing her tightly and keeping my legs 
entirely stiff — as per instructions from my son — 
I stalk swiftly along the floor, while she backs 
with prodigious velocity. Away we go, an odd 
four hundred pounds of us, until, exhausted, we 

86 



MY FRIENDS 

collapse against the table where the champagne 
is being distributed. 

Though I have carefully followed the directions 
of my preceptor, I am aware that the effect pro- 
duced by our efforts is somehow not the same as 
his. I observe him in a close embrace with a 
willowy young thing, dipping gracefully in the 
distance. They pause, sway, run a few steps, 
stop dead and suddenly sink to the floor — only to 
rise and repeat the performance. 

So the evening wears gaily on. I caper round 
— now sedately, now deliriously — knowing that, 
however big a fool I am making of myself, we are 
all in the same boat. My wife is doing it, too, to 
the obvious annoyance of our daughters. But this 
is the smartest ball of the season. When all the 
world is dancing it would be conspicuous to loi- 
ter in the doorway. Society has ruled that 
I must dance — if what I am doing can be so 
called. 

I am aware that I should not care to allow my 
clients to catch an unexpected glimpse of my 
antics with Mrs. Jones;, yet to be permitted to 

87 



THE ^GOLDFISH" 

dance with her is one of the privileges of our suc- 
cess. I might dance elsewhere but it would not 
be the same thing. Is not my hostess' hoarse, 
good-natured, rather vulgar voice the clarion of 
society? Did not my wife scheme and plot for 
years before she managed to get our names on the 
sacred list of invitations? 

To be sure, I used to go to dances enough as a 
lad; and good times I had too. The High School 
Auditorium had a splendid floor; and the girls, 
even though they were unacquainted with all these 
newfangled steps, could waltz and polka, and do 
Sir Roger de Coverley. Good old days! I re- 
member my wife — I met her in that old hall. She 
wore a white muslin dress trimmed with artificial 
roses. I wonder if I properly appreciate the dis- 
tinction of being asked to Mrs. Jones' turkey- 
trotting parties ! My butler and the kitchen-maid 
are probably doing the same thing in the basement 
at home to the notes of the usefulman's accordion 
— and having a better time than I am. 

It is a pleasure to watch my son or my daugh- 
ters glide through the intricacies of these modern 

88 



MY FRIENDS 

dances, which the natural elasticity and supple- 
ness of youth render charming in spite of their 
grotesqueness. But why should I seek to copy 
them^ In spite of the fact that I am still rather 
athletic I cannot do so. With my utmost en- 
deavor I fail to imitate their grace. I am getting 
old. My muscles are stiff and out of training. 
My wind has suffered. Mrs. Jones probably 
never had any. 

And if I am ridiculous, what of her and the other 
women of her age who, for some unknown reason, 
fatuously suppose they can renew their lost youth*? 
Occasionally luck gives me a debutante for a part- 
ner when I go out to dinner. I do my best to 
entertain her — trot out all my old jokes and 
stories, pay her delicate compliments, and do 
frank homage to her youth and beauty. But her 
attention wanders. My tongue is stiff, like my 
legs. It can wag through the old motions, but 
it has lost its spontaneity. One glance from the 
eye of the boy down the long table and she is 
oblivious of my existence. Should I try to dance 
with her I should quickly find that crabbed middle- 

89 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

age and youth cannot step in time. My place is 
with Mrs. Jones — or, better, at home and in bed. 

Apart, however, from the dubious delight of 
dancing, all is not gold that glitters socially. The 
first time my wife and I were invited to a week- 
end party at the country-house of a widely known 
New York hostess we were both much excited. 
At last we were to be received on a footing of real 
intimacy by one of the inner circle. Even my 
valet, an imperturbable Englishman who would 
have announced that the house was on fire in the 
same tone as that my breakfast was ready, showed 
clearly that he was fully aware of the significance 
of the coming event. For several days he ex- 
hibited signs of intense nervous anxiety, and when 
at last the time of my departure arrived I found 
that he had filled two steamer trunks with the 
things he regarded as indispensable for my com- 
fort and well-being. 

My wife's maid had been equally assiduous. 
Both she and the valet had no intention of learn- 
ing on our return that any feature of our respec- 

90 



i 



MY FRIENDS 

tive wardrobes had been forgotten; since we had 
decided not to take either of our personal servants, 
for the reason that we thought to do so might pos- 
sibly be regarded as an ostentation. 

I made an early getaway from my office on 
Friday afternoon, met my wife at the ferry, and 
in due course, but by no means with comfort, 
managed to board the train and secure our seats 
in the parlor car before it started. We reached 
our destination at about half-past four and were 
met by a footman in livery, who piloted us to a 
limousine driven by a French chauffeur. We 
were the only arrivals. 

In my confusion I forgot to do anything about 
our trunks, which contained our evening apparel. 
During the run to the house we were both on the 
verge of hysteria owing to the speed at which we 
were driven — seventy miles an hour at the least. 
And at one corner we were thrown forward, clear 
of the seats and against the partition, by an unex- 
pected stop. An interchange of French profanity 
tinted the atmosphere for a few moments and then 
we resumed the trajectory of our flight. 

91 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

We had expected to be welcomed by our host- 
ess; but instead we were informed by the butler 
that she and the other guests had driven over to 
watch a polo game and would probably not be 
back before six. As we had nothing to do we 
strolled round the grounds and looked at the 
shrubbery for a couple of hours, at the end of 
which period we had tea alone in the library. 
We had, of course, no sooner finished than the 
belated party entered, the hostess full of vocifer- 
ous apologies. 

I remember this occasion vividly because it was 
my first introduction to that artificially enforced 
merriment which is the inevitable concomitant of 
smart gatherings in America. The men invari- 
ably addressed each other as Old Man and the 
women as My Dear. No one was mentioned ex- 
cept by his or her first name or by some intimate 
diminutive or abbreviation. It seemed to be 
assumed that the guests were only interested in 
personal gossip relating to the marital infelicities 
of the neighboring countryside, who lost most at 
cards, and the theater. Every remark relating to 

92 



MY FRIENDS 

these absorbing subjects was given a feebly hu- 
morous twist and greeted with a burst of hilarity. 
Even the mere suggestion of going upstairs to 
dress for dinner was a sufficient reason for an ex- 
plosion of merriment. If noise was an evidence 
of having a good time these people were having 
the time of their lives. Personally I felt a little 
out of my element. I had still a lingering dis- 
inclination to pretend to a ubiquity of social ac- 
quaintance that I did not really possess, and I had 
never learned to laugh in a properly boisterous 
manner. But my wife appeared highly gratified. 
Delay in sending to the depot for our trunks — 
the fault of the butler, to whom we turned over 
our keys — ^prevented, as we supposed, our getting 
ready in time for dinner. Everybody . else had 
gone up to dress; so we also went to our rooms, 
which consisted of two huge apartments connected 
by a bathroom of similar acreage. The furniture 
was dainty and chintz-covered. There was an 
abundance of writing paper, envelopes, magazines 
and French novels. Superficially the arrange- 
ments were wholly charming. 

93 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

The baggage arrived at about ten minutes to 
eight, after we had sat helplessly waiting for 
nearly an hour. The rooms were plentifully sup- 
plied with buttons marked: Maid; Valet; Butler's 
Pantry — and so on. But, though we pressed these 
anxiously, there was no response. I concluded 
that the valet was hunting or sleeping or other- 
wise occupied. I unpacked my trunks with- 
out assistance; my wife unpacked hers. But 
before I could find and assemble my evening 
garments I had to unwrap the contents of every 
tray and fill the room knee-high with tissue- 
paper. 

Unable to secure any response to her repeated 
calls for the maid, my wife was nearly reduced to 
tears. However, in those days I was not unskil- 
ful in hooking up a dress, and we managed to get 
downstairs, with ready apologies on our lips, by 
twenty minutes of nine. We were the first ones 
down however. 

The party assembled in a happy-go-lucky man- 
ner and, after the cocktails had been served, gath- 
ered round the festive board at five minutes past 

94 



MY FRIENDS 

nine. The dinner was the regulation heavy, ex- 
pensive New York meal, eaten to the accompani- 
ment of the same noisy mirth I have already 
described. Afterward the host conducted the men 
to his "den," a luxurious paneled library filled 
with rare prints, and we listened for an hour to the 
jokes and anecdotes of a semiprofessional jester 
who took it on himself to act as the life of the 
party. It was after eleven o' clock when we re- 
joined the ladies, but the evening apparently had 
only just begun; the serious business of the day — 
bridge — was at hand. But in those days my wife 
and I did not play bridge ; and as there was noth- 
ing else for us to do we retired, after a polite in- 
terval, to our apartments. 

While getting ready for the night we shouted 
cheerfully to one another through the open doors 
of the bathroom and, I remember, became quite 
jolly; but when my wife had gone to bed and I 
tried to close the blinds I discovered that there 
were none. Now neither of us had acquired the 
art of sleeping after daylight unless the daylight 
was excluded. With grave apprehension I ar- 

95 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

ranged a series of makeshift screens and extin- 
guished the lights, wandering round the room and 
turning off the key of each one separately, since 
the architect had apparently forgotten to put in a 
central switch. 

If there had been no servants in evidence when 
we wanted them before dinner, no such complaint 
could be entered now. There seemed to be a 
bowling party going on upstairs. We could also 
hear plainly the rattle of dishes and a lively in- 
terchange of informalities from the kitchen end 
of the establishment. We lay awake tensely. 
Shortly after one o' clock these particular sounds 
died away, but there was a steady tramp of feet 
over our heads until three. About this hour, also, 
the bridge party broke up and the guests came 
upstairs. 

There were no outside doors to our rooms. 
Bells rang, water ran, and there was that curious 
vibration which even hairbrushing seems to set 
going in a country house. Then with a final bang, 
comparative silence descended. Occasionally still, 
to be sure, the floor squeaked over our heads. 

96 



MY FRIENDS 

Once somebody got up and closed a window. I 
could hear two distant snorings in major and 
minor keys. I managed to snatch a few winks 
and then an alarm-clock went off. At no great 
distance the scrubbing maid was getting up. I 
could hear her every move. 

The sun also rose and threw fire-pointed darts 
at us through the windowshades. By five o' clock 
I was ready to scream with nerves; and, having 
dug a lounge suit out of the gentlemen's furnish- 
ing store in my trunk, I cautiously descended into 
the lower regions. There was a rich smell of 
cigarettes everywhere. In the hall I stumbled 
over the sleeping feet of the night-watchman. 
But the birds were twittering in the bushes; the 
grassblades threw back a million flashes to the 
sun. 

Not before a quarter to ten could I secure a 
cup of coffee, though several footmen, in answer 
to my insistent bell, had been running round ap- 
parently for hours in a vain endeavor to get it 
for me. At eleven a couple of languid younger 
men made their appearance and conversed apa- 

97 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

thetically with one another over the papers. The 
hours drew on. 

Lifnch came at two o'clock, bursting like a 
thunderstorm out of a sunlit sky. Afterward 
the guests sat round and talked. People were 
coming to tea at five, and there was hardly 
any use in doing anything before that time. 
A few took naps. A young lady and gentleman 
played an impersonal game of tennis; but at five 
an avalanche of social leaders poured out of a 
dozen shrieking motors and stormed the castle 
with salvos of strident laughter. The cannonade 
continued, with one brief truce in which to dress 
for dinner, until long after midnight. Vox, et 
prczterea nihil! 

I look back on that house party with vivid hor- 
ror. Yet it was one of the most valuable of my 
social experiences. We were guests invited for 
the first time to one of the smartest houses on Long 
Island ; yet we were neglected by male and female 
servants alike, deprived of all possibility of sleep, 
and not the slightest effort was made to look after 
our personal comfort and enjoyment by either our 

98 



MY FRIENDS 

host or hostess. Incidentally on my departure I 
distributed about forty dollars among various dig- 
nitaries who then made their appearance. 

It is probable that time has somewhat exag- 
gerated my recollections of the miseries of this our 
first adventure into ultrasmart society, but its 
salient characteristics have since repeated them- 
selves in countless others. I no longer accept 
week-end invitations; — for me the quiet of my 
library or the Turkish bath at my club; for they 
are all essentially alike. Surrounded by luxury, 
the guests yet know no comfort I 

After a couple of days of ennui and an equal 
number of sleepless nights, his brain foggy with 
innumerable drinks, his eyes dizzy with the pips 
of playing cards, and his ears still echoing, with 
senseless hilarity, the guest rises while it is not 
yet dawn and, fortified by a lukewarm cup of faint 
coffee boiled by the kitchen maid and a slice of 
leatherlike toast left over from Sunday's break- 
fast, presses ten dollars on the butler and five on 
the chauffeur — and boards the train for the city, 
nervous, disgruntled, his digestion upset and his 

99 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

head totally out of kilter for the day's work. 

Since my first experience in house parties I 
have yielded weakly to my wife's importunities on 
several hundred similar occasions. Some of these 
visits have been fairly enjoyable. Sleep is some- 
times possible. Servants are not always neglect- 
ful. Discretion in the matter of food and drink 
is conceivable, even if not probable, and occa- 
sionally one meets congenial persons. 

As a rule, however, all the hypocrisies of society 
are intensified threefold when heterogeneous peo- 
ple are thrown into the enforced contact of a Sun- 
day together in the country; but the artificiality 
and insincerity of smart society is far less offensive 
than the pretentiousness of mere wealth. 

Not long ago I attended a dinner given on Fifth 
Avenue the invitation to which had been eagerly 
awaited by my wife. We were asked to dine in- 
formally with a middle-aged couple who for no 
obvious reason have been accepted as fashionable 
desirables. He is the retired head of a great com- 
bination of capital usually described as a trust. A 

loo 



MY FRIENDS 

canopy and a carpet covered the sidewalk outside 
the house. Two flunkies in cockaded hats stood 
beside the door, and in the hall was a line of six 
liveried lackeys. Three maids helped my wife re- 
move her wraps and adjust her hair. 

In the salon where our hostess received us were 
hung pictures representing an outlay of nearly 
two million dollars — ^part of a collection the bal- 
ance of which they keep in their house in Paris; 
for these people are not content with one mansion 
on Fifth Avenue and a country house on Long 
Island, but own a palace overlooking the Bois de 
Boulogne and an enormous estate in Scotland. 
They spend less than ten weeks in New York, six 
in the country, and the rest of the year abroad. 

The other male guests had all amassed huge 
fortunes and had given up active work. They 
had been, in their time, in the thick of the fray. 
Yet these men, who had swayed the destinies of 
the industrial world, stood about awkwardly dis- 
cussing the most trivial of banalities, as if they 
had never had a vital interest in anything. 

Then the doors leading into the dining room 

101 



THE '^GOLDFISH" 

were thrown open, disclosing a table covered with 
rosetrees in full bloom five feet in height and a 
concealed orchestra began to play. There were 
twenty-four seats and a footman for each two 
chairs, besides two butlers, who directed the serv- 
ice. The dinner consisted of hors-d'oeuvre and 
grapefruit, turtle soupj fish of all sorts, elaborate 
entrees, roasts, breasts of plover served separately 
with salad, and a riot of ices and exotic fruits. 

Throughout the meal the host discoursed learn- 
edly on the relative excellences of various vintages 
of champagne and the difficulty of procuring 
cigars suitable for a gentleman to smoke. It ap- 
peared that there was no longer any wine — except 
a few bottles in his own cellar — which was pal- 
atable or healthful. Even coffee was not fit for 
use unless it had been kept for six years! His 
own cigars were made to order from a selected 
crop of tobacco he had bought up entire. His 
cigarettes, which were the size of small sausages, 
were prepared from specially cured leaves of 
plants grown on "sunny corners of the walls of 
Smyrna." His Rembrandts, his Botticellis, his 

102 



MY FRIENDS 

Sir Joshuas, his Hoppners, were little things he 
had picked up here and there, but which, he ad- 
mitted, were said to be rather good. 

Soon all the others were talking wine, tobacco 
and Botticelli as well as they could, though most 
of them knew more about coal, cotton or creosote 
than the subjects they were affecting to discuss. 

This, then, was success I To flounder help- 
lessly in a mire of artificiality and deception to 
Tales of Hoffmann ! 

If I were asked what was the object of our going 
to such a dinner I could only answer that it was 
in order to be invited to others of the same kind. 
Is it for this we labor and worry — that we scheme 
and conspire — that we debase ourselves and lose 
our self-respect? Is there no wine good enough 
for my host? Will God let such arrogance be 
without a blast of fire from heaven? 

There was a time not so very long ago when 
this same man was thankful enough for a slice of 
meat and a chunk of bread carried in a tin pail — 
content with the comfort of an old brier pipe 
filled with cut plug and smoked in a sunny corner 

103 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

of the factory yard. "Sunny corners of the walls 
of Smyrna I" 

It is a fine thing to assert that here in America 
we have "out of a democracy of opportunity" 
created "an aristocracy of achievement." The 
phrase is stimulating and perhaps truly expresses 
the spirit of our energetic and ambitious country; 
but an aristocracy of achievement is truly noble 
only when the achievements themselves are fine. 
What are the achievements that win our applause, 
for which we bestow our decorations in America? 
Do we honor most the men who truly serve their 
generation and their country? Or do we fawn, 
rather, on those who merely serve themselves? 

It is a matter of pride with us — frequently ex- 
pressed in disparagement of our European con- 
temporaries — that we are a nation of workers; 
that to hold any position in the community every 
man must have a job or otherwise lose caste; that 
we tolerate no loafing. We do not conceal our 
contempt for the chap who fails to go down every 
day to the office or business. Often, of course, 

104 



MY FRIENDS 

our ostentatious workers go down, but do very 
little work. We feel somehow that every man 
owes it to the community to put in from six to 
ten hours time below the residential district. 

Young men who have inherited wealth are as 
chary of losing one hour as their clerks. The busy 
millionaire sits at his desk all day — his ear to the 
telephone. We assume that these men are useful 
because they are busy; but in what does their use- 
fulness consist? What are they busy about? 
They are setting an example of mere industry, 
perhaps — ^but to what end? Simply, in seven 
cases out of ten, in order to get a few dollars or a 
few millions more than they have already. Their 
exertions have no result except to enable their 
families to live in even greater luxury. 

I know at least fifty men, fathers of families, 
whose homes might radiate kindliness and sympa- 
thy and set an example of wise, generous and 
broad-minded living, who, already rich beyond 
their needs, rush downtown before their children 
have gone to school, pass hectic, nerve-racking 
days in the amassing of more money, and return 

105 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

after their little ones have gone to bed, too utterly- 
exhausted to take the slightest interest in what 
their wives have been doing or in the pleasure and 
welfare of their friends. 

These men doubtless give liberally to charity, 
but they give impersonally, not generously; they 
are in reality utterly selfish, engrossed in the en- 
thralling game of becoming successful or more 
successful men, sacrificing their homes, their fam- 
ilies and their health — for what*? To get on; to 
better their position ; to push in among those others 
who, simply because they have outstripped the rest 
in the matter of filling their own pockets, are 
hailed with acclamation. 

It is pathetic to see intelligent, capable men 
bending their energies not to leading wholesome, 
well-rounded, serviceable lives but to gaining a 
slender foothold among those who are far less 
worthy of emulation than themselves and with 
whom they have nothing whatsoever in common 
except a despicable ambition to display their 
wealth and to demonstrate that they have "social 
position." 

106 



MY FRIENDS 

In what we call the Old World a man's social 
position is a matter of fixed classification — that is 
to say, his presumptive ability and qualifications to 
amuse and be amused; to hunt, fish and shoot; to 
ride, dance, and make himself generally agree- 
able — are known from the start. And, based on 
the premise that what is known as society exists 
simply for the purpose of enabling people to have 
a good time, there is far more reason to suppose 
that one who comes of a family which has made 
a specialty of this pursuit for several hundred years 
is better endowed by Nature for that purpose than 
one who has made a million dollars out of a patent 
medicine or a lucky speculation in industrial se- 
curities. 

The great manufacturer or chemist in England, 
France, Italy, or Germany, the clever inventor, the 
astute banker, the successful merchant, have their 
due rewards ; but, except in obvious instances, they 
are not presumed to have acquired incidentally to 
their material prosperity the arts of playing 
billiards, making love, shooting game on the wing, 
entertaining a house party or riding to hounds. 

107 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

Occasionally one of them becomes by special favor 
of the sovereign a baronet; but, as a rule his so- 
called social position is little affected by his busi- 
ness success, and there is no reason why it 
should be. He may make a fortune out of a new 
process, but he invites the same people to dinner, 
frequents the same club and enjoys himself in just 
about the same way as he did before. His newly 
acquired wealth is not regarded as in itself likely 
to make him a more congenial dinner-table com- 
panion or any more delightful at five-o'clock tea. 

The aristocracy of England and the Continent 
is not an aristocracy of achievement but of the po- 
lite art of killing time pleasantly. As such it has 
a reason for existence. Yet it can at least be said 
for it that its founders, however their descend- 
ants may have deteriorated, gained their original 
titles and positions by virtue of their services to 
their king and country. 

However, with a strange perversity — due per- 
haps to our having the Declaration of Independ- 
ence crammed down our throats as children — we 
in America seem obsessed with an ambition to 

108 



MY FRIENDS 

create a social aristocracy, loudly proclaimed as 
founded on achievement, which, in point of fact, 
is based on nothing but the possession of money. 
The achievement that most certainly lands one 
among the crowned heads of the American nobil- 
ity is admittedly the achievement of having ac- 
quired in some way or other about five million 
dollars; and it is immaterial whether its possessor 
got it by hard work, inheritance, marriage or the 
invention of a porous plaster. 

In the wider circle of New York society are 
to be found a considerable number of amiable 
persons who have bought their position by 
the lavish expenditure of money amassed through 
the clever advertising and sale of table relishes, 
throat emollients, fireside novels, canned edibles, 
cigarettes, and chewing tobacco. The money was 
no doubt legitimately earned. The patent-medi- 
cine man and the millionaire tailor have my en- 
tire respect. I do not sneer at honest wealth ac- 
quired by these humble means. The rise — if it 
be a rise — of these and others like them is super- 
ficial evidence, perhaps, that ours is a democracy. 

log 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

Looking deeper, we see that it is, in fact, proof 
of our utter and shameless snobbery. 

Most of these people are in society not on ac- 
count of their personal qualities, or even by virtue 
of the excellence of their cut plug, or throat wash 
which, in truth, may be a real boon to mankind — 
but because they have that most imperative of all 
necessities — money. The achievement by which 
they have become aristocrats is not the kind of 
achievement that should have entitled them to 
the distinction which is theirs. They are re- 
ceived and entertained for no other reason what- 
ever save that they can receive and entertain in 
return. Their bank accounts are at the disposal 
of the other aristocrats — and so are their houses, 
automobiles and yachts. The brevet of nobility 
— by achievement^is conferred on them, and the 
American people read of their comings and goings, 
their balls, dinners and other festivities with con- 
suming and reverent interest. Most dangerously 
significant of all is the fact that, so long as the 
applicant for social honors has the money, the 
method by which he got it, however reprehensible, 

no 



MY FRIENDS 

is usually overlooked. That a man is a thief, so 
long as he has stolen enough, does not impair his 
desirability. The achievement of wealth is suf- 
ficient in itself to entitle him to a seat in the 
American House of Lords. 

A substantial portion of the entertaining that 
takes place on Fifth Avenue is paid for out 
of pilfered money. Ten years ago this rhetorical 
remark would have been sneered at as demagogic. 
To-day everybody knows that it is simply the 
fact. Yet we continue to eat with entire uncon- 
cern the dinners that have, as it were, been ab- 
stracted from the dinner-pails of the poor. I can- 
not conduct an investigation into the business his- 
tory of every man who asks me to his house. And 
even if I know he has been a crook, I cannot afford 
to stir up an unpleasantness by attempting in my 
humble way to make him feel sorrow for his mis- 
deeds. If I did I might find myself alone — de- 
serted by the rest of the aristocracy who are 
concerned less with his morality than with the 
vintage of his wine and the dot he is going to give 
his daughter. 

Ill 



THE ^'GOLDFISH" 

The methods by which a newly rich American 
purchases a place among our nobility are sim- 
ple and direct. He does not storm the inner cita- 
del of society but at the start ingratiates himself 
with its lazy and easy-going outposts. He rents 
a house in a fashionable country suburb of New 
York and goes in and out of town on the "dude" 
train. He soon learns what professional people 
mingle in smart society and these he bribes to re- 
ceive him and his family. He buys land and re- 
tains a "smart" lawyer to draw his deeds and at- 
tend to the transfer of title. He engages a 
fashionable architect to build his house, and a 
society young lady who has gone into landscape 
gardening to lay out his grounds. He cannot 
work the game through his dentist or plumber, but 
he establishes friendly relations with the swell 
local medical man and lets him treat an imaginary 
illness or two. He has his wife's portrait painted 
by an artist who makes a living off similar aspir- 
ants, and in exchange gets an invitation to drop 
in to tea at the studio. He buys broken- 
winded hunters from the hunting set, decrepit 

112 



MY FRIENDS 

ponies from the polo players, and stone griffins 
for the garden from the social sculptress. 

A couple of hundred here, a couple of thousand 
there, and he and his wife are dining out among 
the people who run things. Once he gets a foot- 
hold, the rest is by comparison easy. The bribes 
merely become bigger and more direct. He gives 
a landing to the yacht club, a silver mug for the 
horse show, and an altar rail to the church. He 
entertains wisely — gracefully discarding the doc- 
tor, lawyer, architect and artist as soon as they are 
no longer necessary. He has, of course, already 
opened an account with the fashionable broker 
who lives near him, and insured his life with the 
well-known insurance man, his neighbor. He 
also plays poker daily with them on the train. 

This Is the period during which he be- 
comes a willing, almost eager, mark for the de- 
cayed sport who purveys bad champagne and 
vends his own brand of noxious cigarettes. He 
achieves the Stock Exchange Crowd without diffi- 
culty and moves on up Into the Banking Set com- 
posed of trust company presidents, millionaires 

113 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

who have nothing but money, and the elite of the 
stockbrokers and bond men who handle their pri- 
vate business. 

The family are by this time "going almost 
everywhere"; and in a year or two, if the money 
holds out, they can buy themselves into the inner 
circles. It is only necessary to take a villa at 
Newport and spend about one hundred thousand 
dollars in the course of the season. The walls 
of the city will fall down flat if the golden 
trumpet blows but mildly. And then, there they 
are — right in the middle of the champagne, clam- 
bakes and everything else! — invited to sit with 
the choicest of America's nobility on golden 
chairs — supplied from New York at one dollar 
per — and to dance to the strains of the most ex- 
pensive music amid the subdued popping of dis- 
tant corks. 

In this social Arabian Nights' dream, however, 
you will find no sailors or soldiers, no great actors 
or writers, no real poets or artists, no genuine 
statesmen. The nearest you will get to any of 
these is the millionaire senator, or the amateur 

114 



MY FRIENDS 

decorators and portrait painters who, by making 
capital of their acquaintance, get a living out of 
society. You will find few real people among 
this crowd of intellectual children. 

The time has not yet come in America when a 
leader of smart society dares to invite to her 
table men and women whose only merit is that 
they have done something worth while. She is 
not sufficiently sure of her own place. She must 
continue all her social life to be seen only with 
the "right people." In England her position 
would be secure and she could summon whom she 
would to dine with her; but in New York we have 
to be careful lest, by asking to our houses some 
distinguished actor or novelist, people might think 
we did not know we should select our friends — 
not for what they are, but for what they have. 

In a word, the viciousness of our social hierarchy 
lies in the fact that it is based solely upon material 
success. We have no titles of nobility; but we 
have Coal Barons, Merchant Princes and Kings 
of Finance. The very catchwords of our slang tell 
the story. The achievement of which we boast 

115 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

as the foundation of our aristocracy is indeed ig- 
noble; but, since there is no other, we and our 
sons, and their sons after them, will doubtless con- 
tinue to struggle — and perhaps steal — to prove, 
to the satisfaction of ourselves and the world at 
large, that we are entitled to be received into the 
nobility of America not by virtue of our good 
deeds, but of our so-called success. 

We would not have it otherwise. We should 
cry out against any serious attempt, outside of 
the pulpit, to alter or readjust an order that 
enables us to buy for money a position of 
which we would be otherwise undeserving. It 
would be most discouraging to us to have substi- 
tuted for the present arrangement a society in 
which the only qualifications for admittance were 
those of charm, wit, culture, good breeding and 
good sportsmanship. 



116 



CHAPTER III 

MY CHILDREN 

I PRIDE myself on being a man of the world — 
in the better sense of the phrase. I feel no 
regret over the passing of those romantic days 
when maidens swooned at the sight of a drop of 
blood or took refuge in the "vapors" at the ap- 
proach of a strange young man; in point of fact I 
do not believe they ever did. I imagine that our 
popular idea of the fragility and sensitiveness of 
the weaker sex, based on the accounts of novelists 
of the eighteenth century, is largely a literary con- 
vention. 

Heroines were endowed, as a matter of course, 
with the possession of all the female virtues, in- 
tensified to such a degree that they were covered 
with burning blushes most of the time. Languor, 
hysteria and general debility were regarded as the 
outward indications of a sweet and gentle charac- 

117 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

ter. Woman was a tendril clinging to the strong 
oak of masculinity. Modesty was her cardinal 
virtue. One is, of course, entitled to speculate on 
the probable contemporary causes for the seeming 
overemphasis placed on this admirable character- 
istic. Perhaps feminine honesty was so rare as 
to be at a premium and modesty was a sort of 
electric sign of virtue. 

I am not squeamish. I have always let my 
children read what they would. I have never 
made a mystery of the relations of the sexes, for 
I know the call of the unseen — the fascination 
lent by concealment, of discovery. I believe 
frankness to be a good thing. A mind that is 
startled or shocked by the exposure of an ankle or 
the sight of a stocking must be essentially impure. 
Nor do I quarrel with woman's natural desire to 
adorn herself for the allurement of man. That is 
as inevitable as springtime. 

But unquestionably the general tone of social 
intercourse in America, at least in fashionable cen- 
ters, has recently undergone a marked and strik- 
ing change. The athletic girl of the last twenty 

118 



MY CHILDREN 

years, the girl who invited tan and freckles, 
wielded the tennis bat in the morning and lay 
basking in a bathing suit on the sand at noon, is 
gradually giving way to an entirely different type 
— a type modeled, it would seem, at least so far 
as dress and outward characteristics are concerned, 
on the French demimondaine. There are plenty 
of athletic girls to be found on the golf links and 
tennis courts; but a growing and large minority 
of maidens at the present time are too chary of 
their complexions to brave the sun. Big hats, 
cloudlike veils, high heels, paint and powder mark 
the passing of the vain hope that woman can at- 
tract the male sex by virtue of her eugenic possi- 
bilities alone. 

It is but another and unpleasantly suggestive 
indication that the simplicity of an older gener- 
ation — the rugged virtue of a more frugal time — 
has given place to the sophistication of the Conti- 
nent. When I was a lad, going abroad was a 
rare and costly privilege. A youth who had been 
to Rome, London and Paris, and had the unusual 
opportunity of studying the treasures of the Vati- 

119 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

can, the Louvre and the National Gallery, was 
regarded with envy. Americans went abroad for 
culture; to study the glories of the past. 

Now the family that does not invade Europe at 
least every other summer is looked on as hope- 
lessly old-fashioned. No clerk can find a job on 
the Rue de Rivoli or the Rue de la Paix unless 
he speaks fluently the dialect of the customers 
on whose trade his employer chiefly relies — those 
from Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois. 
The American no longer goes abroad for improve- 
ment, but to amuse himself. The college Fresh- 
man knows, at least by name, the latest beauty 
who haunts the Folies Bergeres, and his father 
probably has a refined and intimate familiarity 
with the special attractions of Giro's and the 
Trocadero. 

I do not deny that we have learned valuable 
lessons from the Parisians. At any rate our cook- 
ing has vastly improved. Epicurus would have 
difficulty in choosing between the delights of New 
York and Paris — for, after all. New York is Paris 
and Paris is New York. The chef of yesterday 

120 



MY CHILDREN 

at Voisin's rules the kitchen of the Ritz-Carlton 
or the Plaza to-day; and he cannot have traveled 
much who does not find a dozen European ac- 
quaintances among the head waiters of Broadway. 
Not to know Paris nowadays is felt to be as great 
a humiliation as it was fifty years ago not to know 
one's Bible. 

Beyond the larger number of Americans who 
visit Paris for legitimate or semi-legitimate pur- 
poses, there is a substantial fraction who go to do 
things they either cannot or dare not do at home. 
And as those who have not the time or the money 
to cross the Atlantic and who still itch for the 
boulevards must be kept contented, Broadway is 
turned into Montmartre. The result is that we 
cannot take our daughters to the theater without 
risking familiarizing them with vice in one form 
or another. I do not think I am overstating the 
situation when I say that it would be reasonably 
inferred from most of our so-called musical shows 
and farces that the natural, customary and ex- 
cusable amusement of the modern man after work- 
ing hours — whether the father of a family or a 

121 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

youth of twenty — is a promiscuous adventuring 
into sexual immorality. 

I do not regard as particularly dangerous the 
vulgar French farce where papa is caught in some 
extraordinary and buffoonlike situation with the 
washerwoman. Safety lies in exaggeration. But 
it is a different matter with the ordinary Broadway 
show, where virtue is made — at least inferentially 
— the object of ridicule, and sexuality is the un- 
derlying purpose of the production. During the 
present New York theatrical season several plays 
have been already censored by the authorities, and 
either been taken off entirely or so altered as to 
be still within the bounds of legal pruriency. 

Whether I am right in attributing it to the in- 
fluence of the French music halls or not, it is the 
fact that the tone of our theatergoing public is 
essentially low. Boys and girls who are taken in 
their Christmas holidays to see plays at which 
their parents applaud questionable songs and sug- 
gestive dances, cannot be blamed for assuming 
that there is not one set of morals for the stage 
^nd another for ordinary social intercourse. 

122 



MY CHILDREN 

Hence, the college boy who has kept straight for 
eight months in the year is apt to wonder : What 
is the use? And the debutante who is curious 
for all the experiences her new liberty makes pos- 
sible takes it for granted that an amorous trifling 
is the ordinary incident to masculine attention. 

This is far from being mere theory. It is a 
matter of common knowledge that recently the 
most prominent restaurateur in New York found 
it necessary to lock up, or place a couple of uni- 
formed maids in, every unoccupied room in his 
establishment whenever a private dance was given 
there for young people. Boys and girls of 
eighteen would leave these dances by dozens and, 
hiring taxicabs, go on slumming expeditions and 
excursions to the remoter corners of Central Park. 
In several instances parties of two or four went to 
the Tenderloin and had supper served in private 
rooms. 

This is the childish expression of a demoraliza- 
tion that is not confined simply to smart society, 
but is gradually permeating the community in 
general. From the ordinary dinner- table conver- 

123 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

sation one hears at many of the country houses 
on Long Island it would be inferred that mar- 
riage was an institution of value only for legit- 
imatizing concubinage ; that an old-fashioned love 
affair was something to be rather ashamed of; and 
that morality in the young was hardly to be ex- 
pected. Of course a great deal of this is mere 
talk and bombast, but the maid-servants hear it. 
I believe, fortunately — and my belief is based 
on a fairly wide range of observation — that the 
continental influence I have described has pro- 
duced its ultimate effect chiefly among the rich; 
yet its operation is distinctly observable through- 
out American life. Nowhere is this more patent 
than in much of our current magazine literature 
and light fiction. These stories, under the guise of 
teaching some moral lesson, are frequently de- 
signed to stimulate all the emotions that could be 
excited by the most vicious French novel. Some 
of them, of course, throw off all pretense and 
openly ape the petit histoire d'un amour; but es- 
sentially all are alike. The heroine is a demimon- 
daine in everything but her alleged virtue — the 

124 



MY CHILDREN 

hero a young bounder whose better self restrains 
him just in time. A conventional marriage on 
the last page legalizes what would otherwise have 
been a liaison or a degenerate flirtation. 

The astonishingly unsophisticated and impos- 
sibly innocent shopgirl who — in the story — ^just 
escapes the loss of her honor ; the noble young man 
who heroically "marries the girl" ; the adventures 
of the debonaire actress, who turns out most sur- 
prisingly to be an angel of sweetness and light; 
and the Johnny whose heart is really pure gold, 
and who, to the reader's utter bewilderment, 
proves himself to be a Saint George — these are 
the leading characters in a great deal of our pe- 
riodical literature. 

A friend of mine who edits one of the more suc- 
cessful magazines tells me there are at least half 
a dozen writers who are paid guaranteed salaries 
of from twelve thousand dollars to eighteen thou- 
sand dollars a year for turning out each month 
from five thousand to ten thousand words of what 
is euphemistically termed "hot stuff." An erotic 
writer can earn yearly at the present time more 

125 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

than the salary of the president of the United 
States. What the physical result of all this is 
going to be does not seem to me to matter much. 
If the words of Jesus Christ have any significance 
we are already debased by our imaginations. 

We are dangerously near an epoch of intel- 
lectual if not carnal debauchery. The prevailing 
tendency on the part of the young girls of to-day 
to imitate the dress and makeup of the Parisian 
cocotte is unconsciously due to this general lower- 
ing of the social moral tone. Young women in 
good society seem to feel that they must enter into 
open competition with their less fortunate sisters. 
And in this struggle for survival they are appar- 
ently determined to yield no advantage. Herein 
lies the popularity of the hobble skirt, the trans- 
parent fabric that hides nothing and follows the 
move of every muscle, and the otherwise senseless 
peculiarities and indecencies of the more extreme 
of the present fashions. 

And here, too, is to be found the reason for the 
popularity of the current style of dancing, which 

126 



MY CHILDREN 

offers no real attraction except the opportunity 
for a closeness of contact otherwise not permis- 
sible. 

"It 's all in the way it is done," says Mrs. Jones, 
making the customary defense. "The tango and 
the turkey trot can be danced as unobjectionably 
as the waltz." 

Exactly! Only the waltz is not danced that 
way; and if it were the offending couple would 
probably be put off the floor. Moreover, their 
origin and history demonstrates their essentially 
vicious character. Is there any sensible reason 
why one's daughter should be encouraged to imi- 
tate the dances of the Apache and the negro 
debauchee? Perhaps, after all, the pendulum has 
merely swung just a little too far and is knocking 
against the case. The feet of modern progress 
cannot be hampered by too much of the dead un- 
derbrush of convention. 

The old-fashioned prudery that in former days 
practically prevented rational conversation be- 
tween men and women is fortunately a thing of 
the past, and the fact that it is no longer regarded 

127 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

as unbecoming for women to take an interest in 
all the vital problems of the day — ^municipal, po- 
litical and hygienic — ^provided they can assist in 
their solution, marks several milestones on the 
highroad of advance. 

On the other hand the widespread familiarity 
with these problems, which has been engendered 
simply for pecuniary profit by magazine litera- 
ture in the form of essays, fiction and even verse, 
is by no means an undiluted blessing — ^particularly 
if the accentuation of the author is on the roses 
lining the path of dalliance quite as much as on 
the destruction to which it leads. The very warn- 
ing against evil may turn out to be in effect only 
a hint that it is readily accessible. One does not 
leave the candy box open beside the baby even if 
the infant has received the most explicit instruc- 
tions as to the probable effect of too much sugar 
upon its tiny kidneys. Moreover, the knowledge 
of the prevalence of certain vices suggests to the 
youthful mind that what is so universal must also 
be rather excusable, or at least natural. 

It seems to me that, while there is at present a 
128 



MY CHILDREN 

greater popular knowledge of the high cost of 
sinning, there is at the same time a greater tol- 
erance for sin itself. Certainly this is true among 
the people who make up the circle of my 
friends. 'Wild oats" are regarded as entirely 
a matter of course. No anecdote is too broad to 
be told openly at the dinner table ; in point of fact 
the stories that used to be whispered only very 
discreetly in the smoking room are now told freely 
as the natural relishes to polite conversation. In 
that respect things are pretty bad. 

One cannot help wondering what goes on inside 
the villa on Rhode Island Avenue when the eight- 
een-year-old daughter of the house remarks to the 
circle of young men and women about her at a 
dance : "Well, I 'm going to bed — seuleV The 
listener furtively speculates about mama. He 
feels quite sure about papa. Anyhow this par- 
ticular mot attracted no comment. Doubtless the 
young lady was as far above suspicion as the wife 
of Caesar; but she and her companions in this 
particular set have an appalling frankness of 
speech and a callousness in regard to discussing 

129 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

the more personal facts of human existence that 
is startling to a middle-aged man like myself. 

I happened recently to overhear a bit of casual 
dinner-table conversation between two of the 
gilded ornaments of the junior set. He was a boy 
of twenty-five, well known for his dissipations, 
but, nevertheless, regarded by most mothers as a 
highly desirable farti, 

"Oh, yes!" he remarked easily. "They asked 
me if I wanted to go into a bughouse, and I said 
I hadn't any particular objection. I was there 
a month. Rum place! I should worry!" 

"What ward?" she inquired with polite inter- 
est. 

"Inebriates', of course," said he. 

I am inclined to attribute much of the question- 
able taste and conduct of the younger members of 
the fast set to neglect on the part of their mothers. 
Women who are busy all day and every evening 
with social engagements have little time to culti- 
vate the friendship of their daughters. Hence 
the girl just coming out is left to shift for herself, 
and she soon discovers that a certain risque free- 

130 



MY CHILDREN 

dom in manner and conversation, and a disregard 
of convention, will win her a superficial popularity 
which she is apt to mistake for success. 

Totally ignorant of what she is doing or the es- 
sential character of the means she is employing, 
she runs wild and soon earns an unenviable reputa- 
tion, which she either cannot live down or which 
she feels obliged to live up to in order to satisfy her 
craving for attention. Many a girl has gone 
wrong simply because she felt that it was up to her 
to make good her reputation for caring nothing for 
the proprieties. 

As against an increasing looseness m talk and 
conduct, it is interesting to note that heavy drink- 
ing is clearly going out of fashion in smart society. 
There can be no question as to that. My cham- 
pagne bills are not more than a third of what they 
were ten years ago. I do not attribute this par- 
ticularly to the temperance movement. But, as 
against eight quarts of champagne for a dinner of 
twenty — which used to be about my average when 
we first began entertaining in New York — three 
are now frequently enough. I have watched the 

131 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

butler repeatedly at large dinner parties as he 
passed the wine and seen him fill only four or five 
glasses. 

Women rarely drink at all. About one man in 
three takes champagne. Of course he is apt to 
drink whisky instead, but by no means the same 
amount as formerly. If it were not for the con- 
vention requiring sherry, hock, champagne and li- 
quors to be served the modern host could satisfy 
practically all the serious liquid requirements of 
his guests with a quart bottle of Scotch and a 
siphon of soda. Claret, Madeira, sparkling Mo- 
selles and Burgundies went out long ago. The 
fashion that has taught women self-control in eat- 
ing has shown their husbands the value of absti- 
nence. Unfortunately I do not see in this a bet- 
terment in morals, but mere self-interest — which 
may or may not be the same thing, according to 
one's philosophy. If a man drinks nowadays he 
drinks because he wants to and not to be a good 
fellow. A total abstainer finds himself perfectly 
at home anywhere. 

Of course the fashionables, if they are going to 
132 



MY CHILDREN 

set the pace, have to hit it up in order to head the 
procession. The fastness of the smart set in Eng- 
land is notorious, and it is the same way in France, 
Russia, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia — the world 
over; and as society tends to become unified mere 
national boundaries have less significance. The 
number of Americans who rent houses in London 
and Paris, and shooting boxes in Scotland, is large. 

Hence the moral tone of continental society and 
of the English aristocracy is gradually becoming 
more and more our own. But with this difference 
— that, as the aristocracy in England and conti- 
nental Europe is a separate caste, a well-defined or- 
der, having set metes and bounds, which considers 
itself superior to the rest of the population and 
views it with indifference, so its morals are re- 
garded as more or less its own affair, and they do 
not have a wide influence on the community at 
large. 

Even if he drinks champagne every night at din- 
ner the Liverpool pickle merchant knows he can- 
not get into the king's set; but here the pickle man 
can not only break into the sacred circle, but he and 

133 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

his fat wife may themselves become the king and 
queen. So that a knowledge of how smart society 
conducts itself is an important matter to every man 
and woman living in the United States, since each 
hopes eventually to make a million dollars and 
move to New York. With us the fast crowd sets 
the example for society at large; whereas in Eng- 
land looseness in morals is a recognized privilege 
of the aristocracy to which the commoner may not 
aspire. 

The worst feature of our situation is that the 
quasi-genteel working class, of whom our modern 
complex life supports hundreds of thousands — tel- 
ephone operators, stenographers, and the like — 
greedily devour the newspaper accounts of the 
American aristocracy and model themselves, so 
far as possible, after it. It is almost unbelievable 
how intimate a knowledge these young women 
possess of the domestic life, manner of speech and 
dress of the conspicuous people in New York 
society. 

I once stepped into the Waldorf with a friend 
of mine who wished to send a telephone message. 

134 



MY CHILDREN 

He is a quiet, unassuming man of fifty, who in- 
herited a large fortune and who is compelled, 
rather against his will, to do a large amount of en- 
tertaining by virtue of the position in society which 
Fate has thrust on him. It was a long-distance 
call. 

"Who shall I say wants to talk"?" asked the god- 
dess with fillet-bound yellow hair in a patroniz- 
ingly indifferent tone. 

"Mr. ," answered my companion. 

Instantly the girl's face was suffused with a 
smile of excited wonder. 

"Are you Mr. , the big swell who gives all 

the dinners and dances'?" she inquired. 

"I suppose I'm the man," he answered, rather 
amused than otherwise. 

"Gee!" she cried, "ain't this luck! Look 
here, Mame !" she whispered hoarsely. "I 've got 

Mr. here on a long distance. What do you 

think of that!" 

One cannot doubt that this telephone girl would 
unhesitatingly regard as above criticism anything 

said or done by a woman who moved in Mr. 's 

135 



THE ^^GOLDFISH" 

circle. Unfortunately what this circle does is 
heralded in exaggerated terms. The influence of 
these partially true and often totally false reports 
is far-reaching and demoralizing. 

The other day the young governess of a friend 
of my wife gave up her position, saying she was 
to be married. Her employer expressed an inter- 
est in the matter and asked who was going to per- 
form the ceremony. She was surprised to learn 
that the functionary was to be the local country 
justice of the peace. 

"But why are n't you going to have a clergyman 
marry you^" asked our friend. 

"Because I don't want it too binding I" answered 
the girl calmly. 

So far has the prevalence of divorce cast its en- 
lightening beams. 

I have had a shooting box in Scotland on several 
different occasions ; and my wife has conducted suc- 
cessful social campaigns, as I have said before, in 
London, Paris, Rome and Berlin. I did not go 
along, but I read about it all in the papers and re- 

136 



MY CHILDREN 

ceived weekly from the scene of conflict a pound or 
so of mail matter, consisting of hundreds of di- 
aphanous sheets of paper, each covered with my 
daughters' fashionable humpbacked handwriting. 
Hastings, my stenographer, became very expert 
at deciphering and transcribing it on the machine 
for my delectation. 

I was quite confused at the number and variety 
of the titles of nobility with which my family 
seemed constantly to be surrounded. They had 
a wonderful time, met everybody, and returned 
home perfected cosmopolitans. What their 
ethical standards are I confess I do not know ex- 
actly, for the reason that I see so little of them. 
They lead totally independent lives. 

On rare occasions we are invited to the same 
houses at the same time, and on Christmas Eve we 
still make it a point always to stay at home to- 
gether. Really I have no idea how they dispose 
of their time. They are always away, making 
visits in other cities or taking trips. They chatter 
fluently about literature, the theater, music, art, 
and know a surprising number of celebrities in this 

137 



\ 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

and other countries — ^particularly in London. 
They are good linguists and marvelous dancers. 
They are respectful, well mannered, modest, and 
mildly affectionate; but somehow they do not seem 
to belong to me. They have no troubles of which 
I am the confidant. 

If they have any definite opinions or principles 
I am unaware of them; but they have the most 
exquisite taste. Perhaps with them this takes the 
place of morals. I cannot imagine my girls doing 
or saying anything vulgar, yet what they are like 
when away from home I have no means of finding 
out. I am quite sure that when they eventually 
select their husbands I shall not be consulted in the 
matter. My formal blessing will be all that is 
asked, and if that blessing is not forthcoming no 
doubt they will get along well enough without it. 

However, I am the constant recipient of con- 
gratulations on being the parent of such charming 
creatures. I have succeeded — apparently — in this 
direction as in others. Succeeded in what? I 
cannot imagine these girls of mine being any par- 
ticular solace to my old age. 

138 



MY CHILDREN 

Recently, since writing these confessions of 
mine, I have often wondered why my children 
were not more to me. I do not think they are 
much more to my wife. I suppose it could just as 
well be put the other way. Why are we not more 
to them^ It is because, I fancy, this modern 
existence of ours, where every function and duty 
of maternity — except the actual giving of birth — 
is performed vicariously for us, destroys any inter- 
dependence between parents and their offspring. 
''Smart" American mothers no longer, I am in- 
formed, nurse their babies. I know that my wife 
did not nurse hers. And thereafter each child 
had its own particular French bonne and govern- 
ess besides. 

Our nursery was a model of dainty comfort. 
All the superficial elegancies were provided for. 
It was a sunny, dustless apartment, with snow- 
white muslins, white enamel, and a frieze of gro- 
tesque Noah's Ark animals perambulating round 
the wall. There were huge dolls' houses, with 
electric lights ; big closets of toys. From the ear- 
liest moment possible these three infants began to 

139 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

have private lessons in everything, including 
drawing, music and German. Their little days 
were as crowded with engagements then as 
now. Every hour was provided for; but among 
these multifarious occupations there was no en- 
gagement with their parents. 

Even if their mother had not been overwhelmed 
with social duties herself my babies would, I am 
confident, have had no time for their parent except 
at serious inconvenience and a tremendous sacri- 
fice of time. To be sure, I used occasionally to 
watch them decorously eating their strictly super- 
vised suppers in the presence of the governess; 
but the perfect arrangements made possible by my 
financial success rendered parents a superfluity. 
They never bumped their heads, or soiled their 
clothes, or dirtied their little faces — so far as I 
knew. They never cried — at least I was never 
permitted to hear them. 

When the time came for them to go to bed each 
raised a rosy little cheek and said sweetly : "Good 
night, papa." They had, I think, the usual chil- 
dren's diseases — exactly which ones I am not sure 

140 



MY CHILDREN 

of; but they had them in the hospital room at the 
top of the house, from which I was excluded, and 
the diseases progressed with medical propriety in 
due course and under the efficient management of 
starchy trained nurses. 

Their outdoor life consisted in walking the as- 
phalt pavements of Central Park, varied with oc- 
casional visits to the roller-skating rink; but their 
social life began at the age of four or five. I re- 
member these functions vividly, because they were 
so different from those of my own childhood. 
The first of these was when my eldest daughter 
attained the age of six years. Similar events in 
my private history had been characterized by vio- 
lent games of blind man's buff, hide and seek, 
hunt the slipper, going to Jerusalem, ring- 
round-a-rosy, and so on, followed by a dish of 
ice-cream and hairpulling. 

Not so with my offspring. Ten little ladies 
and gentlemen, accompanied by their maids, hav- 
ing been rearranged in the dressing room down- 
stairs, were received by my daughter with due 
form in the drawing room. They were all 

141 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

flounced, ruffled and beribboned. Two little 
boys of seven had on Eton suits. Their behavior 
was impeccable. 

Almost immediately a professor of legerdemain 
made his appearance and, with the customary 
facility of his brotherhood, proceeded to remove 
tons of debris from presumably empty hats, rab- 
bits from handkerchiefs, and hard-boiled eggs 
from childish noses and ears. The assembled 
group watched him with polite tolerance. At in- 
tervals there was a squeal of surprise, but it soon 
developed that most of them had already seen the 
same trickman half a dozen times. However, 
they kindly consented to be amused, and the 
professor gave way to a Punch and Judy show of 
a sublimated variety, which the youthful audience 
viewed with mild approval. 

The entertainment concluded with a stereopti- 
con exhibition of supposedly humorous events, 
which obviously did not strike the children as 
funny at all. Supper was laid in the dining 
room, where the table had been arranged as if for 
a banquet of diplomats. There were flowers in 

142 



MY CHILDREN 

abundance and a life-size swan of icing at each 
end. Each child was assisted by its own nurse, 
and our butler and a footman served, in stolid 
dignity, a meal consisting of rice pudding, cereals, 
cocoa, bread and butter, and ice-cream. 

It was by all odds the most decorous affair ever 
held in our house. At the end the gifts were dis- 
tributed- — Parisian dolls, toy baby-carriages and 
paint boxes for the girls; steam engines, magic 
lanterns and miniature circuses for the boys. My 
bill for these trifles came to one hundred and 
twelve dollars. At half-past six the carriages 
arrived and our guests were hurried away. 

I instance this affair because it struck the note 
of elegant propriety that has always been the 
tone of our family and social life. The children 
invited to the party were the little boys and girls 
whose fathers and mothers we thought most likely 
to advance their social interests later on. 

Of these children two of the girls have married 
members of the foreign nobility — one a jaded 
English lord, the other a worthless and dissipated 
French count; another married — fifteen years la- 

H3 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

ter — one of these same little boys and divorced 
him within eighteen months; while two of the 
girls — our own — have not married. 

Of the boys one wedded an actress; another 
lives in Paris and studies "art" ; one has been al- 
ready accounted for; and two have given their 
lives to playing polo, the stock market, and ele- 
vating the chorus. 

Beginning at this early period, my two daugh- 
ters, and later on my son, met only the most se- 
lect young people of their own age in New York 
and on Long Island. I remember being surprised 
at the amount of theatergoing they did by the time 
the eldest was nine years old. My wife made a 
practice of giving a children's theater party every 
Saturday and taking her small guests to the 
matinee. As the theaters were more limited in 
number then than now these comparative infants 
sooner or later saw practically everything that was 
on the boards — ^good, bad and indifferent; and 
they displayed a precocity of criticism that quite 
astounded me. 

144 



MY CHILDREN 

Their real social career began with children's 
dinners and dancing parties by the time they were 
twelve, and their later coming out changed little 
the mode of life to which they had been ac- 
customed for several years before it. The re- 
sult of their mother's watchful care and self- 
sacrifice is that these two young ladies could 
not possibly be happy, or even comfortable, if 
they, married men unable to furnish them with 
French maids, motors, constant amusement, gay 
society, travel and Paris clothes. 

Without these things they would wither away 
and die like flowers deprived of the sun. They 
are physically unfit to be anything but the wives 
of millionaires — and they will be the wives 
of millionaires or assuredly die unmarried. But, 
as the circle of rich young men of their acquaint- 
ance is more or less limited their chances of matri- 
mony are by no means bright, albeit that they are 
the pivots of a furious whirl of gaiety which 
never stops. 

No young man with an income of less than 
twenty thousand a year would have the temerity 

145 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

to propose to either of them. Even on twenty 
thousand they would have a hard struggle to get 
along; it would mean the most rigid economy — 
and, if there were babies, almost poverty. 

Besides, when girls are living in the luxury to 
which mine are accustomed they think twice be- 
fore essaying matrimony at all. The prospects 
of changing Newport, Palm Beach, Paris, Rome, 
Nice and Biarritz for the privilege of bearing chil- 
dren in a New York apartment house does not al- 
lure, as in the case of less cosmopolitan young 
ladies. There must be love — ^plus all present ad- 
vantages! Present advantages withdrawn, love 
becomes cautious. 

Even though the rich girl herself is of finer clay 
than her parents and, in spite of her artificial en- 
vironment and the false standards by which she 
is surrounded, would like to meet and perhaps 
eventually marry some young man who is more 
worth while than the "pet cats" of her acquaint- 
ance, she is practically powerless to do so. She is 
cut off by the impenetrable artificial barrier of her 
own exclusiveness. She may hear of such young 

146 



MY CHILDREN 

men — young fellows of ambition, of adventurous 
spirit, of genius, who have already achieved some- 
thing in the world, but they are outside the wall 
of money and she is inside it, and there is no way 
for them to get in or for her to get out. She is 
permitted to know only the jeunesse doree — the 
fops, the sports, the club-window men, whose 
antecedents are vouched for by the Social Regis- 
ter. 

She has no way of meeting others. She does 
not know what the others are like. She is only 
aware of an instinctive distaste for most of the 
young fellows among whom she is thrown. At 
best they are merely innocuous when they are not 
offensive. They do nothing; they intend never 
to do anything. If she is the American girl of 
our plays and novels she wants something better; 
and in the plays and novels she always gets him 
— the dashing young ranchman, the heroic naval 
lieutenant, the fearless Alaskan explorer, the tire- 
less prospector or daring civil engineer. But in 
real life she does not get him — except by the 
merest fluke of fortune. She does not know the 

147 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

real thing when she meets it, and she is just as 
likely to marry a dissipated groom or chauffeur 
as the young Stanley of her dreams. 

The saddest class in our social life is that of the 
thoroughbred American girl who is a thousand 
times too good for her de-luxe surroundings and 
the crew of vacuous la-de-da Willies hanging 
about her, yet who, absolutely cut off from con- 
tact with any others, either gradually fades into 
a peripatetic old maid, wandering over Europe, 
or marries an eligible, turkey-trotting nonde- 
script — "a nimmini-pimmini, Francesca da Rimini, 
je-ne-sais-quoi young man." 

The Atlantic seaboard swarms in summertime 
with broad-shouldered, well-bred, highly edu- 
cated and charming boys, who have had every ad- 
vantage except that of being waited on by liveried 
footmen. They camp in the woods; tutor the 
feeble-minded sons of the rich; tramp and bicycle 
over Swiss mountain passes; sail their catboats 
through the island-studded reaches and thorough- 
fares of the Maine coast, and grow brown and 
hard under the burning sun. They are the hope 

148 



MY CHILDREN 

of America. They can carry a canoe or a hun- 
dred-pound pack over a forest trail; and in the 
winter they set the pace in the scientific, law and 
medical schools. Their heads are clear, their eyes 
are bright, and there is a hollow instead of a bow 
window beneath the buttons of their waistcoats. 

The feet of these young men carry them to 
strange places; they cope with many and strange 
monsters. They are our Knights of the Round 
Table. They find the Grail of Achievement in 
lives of hard work, simple pleasures and high 
ideals — in college and factory towns; in law 
courts and hospitals; in the mountains of Colo- 
rado and the plains of the Dakotas. They are 
the best we have; but the poor rich girl rarely, if 
ever, meets them. The barrier of wealth com- 
pletely hems her in. She must take one of those 
inside or nothing. 

When, in a desperate revolt against the arti- 
ficiality of her existence, she breaks through the 
wall she is easy game for anybody — as likely to 
marry a jockey or a professional forger as one of 
the young men of her desire. One should not 

\ 149 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

blame a rich girl too much for marrying a titled 
and perhaps attractive foreigner. The would-be 
critic has only to step into a Fifth Avenue ball- 
room and see what she is offered in his place to 
sympathize with and perhaps applaud her selec- 
tion. Better a year of Europe than a cycle of — 
shall we say, Narragansett'? After all, why not 
take the real thing, such as it is, instead of an 
imitation'? 

I believe that one of the most cruel results of 
modern social life is the cutting off of young girls 
from acquaintanceship with youths of the sturdy, 
intelligent and hardworking type — and the un- 
fitting of such girls for anything except the mar- 
riage mart of the millionaire. 

I would give half of all I possess to see my 
daughters happily married; but I now realize that 
their education renders such a marriage highly 
difficult of satisfactory achievement. Their 
mother and I have honestly tried to bring them up 
in such a way that they can do their duty in that 
state of life to which it hath pleased God to call 
them. But unfortunately, unless some man hap- 

150 



MY CHILDREN 

pens to call them also, they will have to keep on 
going round and round as they are going now. 

We did not anticipate the possibility of their 
becoming old maids, and they cannot become 
brides of the church. I should honestly be glad 
to have either of them marry almost anybody, pro- 
vided he is a decent fellow. I should not even 
object to their marrying foreigners, but the dif- 
ficulty is that it is almost impossible to find out 
whether a foreigner is really decent or not. It is 
true that the number of foreign noblemen who 
marry American girls for love is negligible. 
There is undoubtedly a small and distinguished 
minority who do so ; but the transaction is usually 
a matter of bargain and sale, and the man regards 
himself as having lived up to his contract by 
merely conferring his title on the woman he thus 
deigns to honor. 

I should prefer to have them marry Americans, 
of course; but I no longer wish them to marry 
Americans of their own class. Yet, unfortu- 
nately, they would be unwilling to marry out of it. 
A curious situation I I have given up my life to 

151 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

buying a place for my children that is supposed 
to give them certain privileges, and I now am loath 
to have them take advantage of those privileges. 

The situation has its amusing as well as its 
pathetic side — for my son, now that I come to 
think of it, is one of the eligibles. He knows 
everybody and is on the road to money. He is 
one of the opportunities that society is offering 
to the daughters of other successful men. Should 
I wish my own girls to marry a youth like him? 
Far from it! Yet he is exactly the kind of fel- 
low that my success has enabled them to meet and 
know, and whom Fate decrees that they shall 
eventually marry if they marry at all. 

When I frankly face the question of how much 
happiness I get out of my children I am con- 
strained to admit that it is very little. The sense 
of proprietorship in three such finished products 
is something, to be sure; and, after all, I suppose 
they have — concealed somewhere — a real affection 
for their old dad. At times they are facetious — 
almost playful — as on my birthday; but I fancy 
that arises from a feeling of embarrassment at 

152 



MY CHILDREN 

not knowing how to be intimate with a parent 
who crosses their path only twice a week, and 
then on the stairs. 

My son has attended to his own career now for 
some fourteen years ; in fact I lost him completely 
before he was out of knickerbockers. Up to the 
time when he was sent away to boarding school he 
spent a rather disconsolate childhood, playing 
with mechanical toys, roller skating in the Mall, 
going occasionally to the theater, and taking 
music lessons; but he showed so plainly the de- 
bilitating effect of life in the city for eight months 
in the year that at twelve he was bundled off to 
a country school. Since then he has grown to 
manhood without our assistance. He went away 
undersized, pale, with a meager little neck and a 
sort of wistful Nicholas Nickleby expression. 
When he returned at the Christmas vacation he 
had gained ten pounds, was brown and freckled, 
and looked like a small giraffe in pantalets. 

Moreover, he had entirely lost the power of 
speech, owing to a fear of making a fool of him- 

153 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

self. During the vacation in question he was re- 
outfitted and sent three times a week to the thea- 
ter. On one or two occasions I endeavored to 
ascertain how he liked school, but all I could get 
out of him was the vague admission that it was 
"all right" and that he liked it "well enough." 
This process of outgrowing his clothes and being 
put through a course of theaters at each vacation 
— there was nothing else to do with him — con- 
tinued for seven years, during which time he grew 
to be six feet two inches in height and gradually 
filled out to man's size. He managed to hold a 
place in the lower third of his class, with the aid 
of constant and expensive tutoring in the summer 
vacations, and he finally was graduated with the 
rest and went to Harvard. 

By this time he preferred to enjoy himself in 
his own way during his leisure and we saw less of 
him than ever. But, whatever his intellectual 
achievements may be, there is no doubt as to his 
being a man of the world, entirely at ease any- 
where, with perfect manners and all the social 
graces. I do not think he was particularly dis- 

154 



MY CHILDREN 

sipated at Harvard; on the other hand, I am as- 
sured by the dean that he was no student. He 
"made" a select club early in his course and from 
that time was occupied, I suspect, in playing poker 
and bridge, discussing deep philosophical questions 
and acquiring the art of living. He never went 
in for athletics; but by doing nothing in a highly 
artistic manner, and by dancing with the most 
startling agility, he became a prominent social 
figure and a headliner in college theatricals. 

From his sophomore year he has been in con- 
stant demand for cotillions, house parties and 
yachting trips. His intimate pals seem to be mid- 
dle-aged millionaires who are known to me in only 
the most casual way; and he is a sort of gentle- 
man-in-waiting — I believe the accepted term is 
"pet cat" — to several society women, for whom he 
devises new cotillion figures, arranges original af- 
ter-dinner entertainments and makes himself gen- 
erally useful. 

Like my two daughters he has arrived — abso- 
lutely; but, though we are members of the same 
learned profession, he is almost a stranger to me. 

^55 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

I had no difficulty in getting him a clerkship in a 
gilt-edged law firm immediately after he was ad- 
mitted to the bar and he is apparently doing mar- 
velously well, though what he can possibly know 
of law will always remain a mystery to me. Yet 
he is already, at the age of twenty-eight, a director 
in three important concerns whose securities are 
listed on the stock exchange, and he spends a great 
deal of money, which he must gather somehow. I 
know that his allowance cannot do much more 
than meet his accounts at the smart clubs to which 
he belongs. 

He is a pleasant fellow and I enjoy the rare 
occasions when I catch a glimpse of him. I do 
not think he has any conspicuous vices — or vir- 
tues. He has simply had sense enough to take 
advantage of his social opportunities and bids fair 
to be equally successful with myself. He has 
really never done a stroke of work in his life, but 
has managed to make himself agreeable to those 
who could help him along. I have no doubt those 
rich friends of his throw enough business in his 
way to net him ten or fifteen thousand dollars a 

156 



MY CHILDREN 

year, but I should hesitate to retain him to defend 
me if I were arrested for speeding. 

Nevertheless at dinner I have seen him bully- 
rag and browbeat a judge of our Supreme Court 
in a way that made me shudder, though I admit 
that the judge in question owed his appointment 
entirely to the friend of my son who happened to 
be giving the dinner; and he will contradict in a 
loud tone men and women older than myself, no 
matter what happens to be the subject under dis- 
cussion. They seem to like it — why, I do not pre- 
tend to understand. They admire his assurance 
and good nature, and are rather afraid of him ! 

I cannot imagine what he would find to do in 
my own law office; he would doubtless regard it 
as a dull place and too narrow a sphere for his 
splendid capabilities. He is a clever chap, this 
son of mine ; and though neither he nor his sisters 
seem to have any particular fondness for one an- 
other, he is astute at playing into their hands and 
they into his. He also keeps a watchful eye on 
our dinner invitations, so they will not fall below 
the properly exclusive standard. 

157 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"What are you asking old Washburn for?" he 
will ask. "He 's been a dead one these five 
years!" Or: "I 'd cut out the Becketts — at least 
if you 're asking the Thompsons. They don't go 
with the same crowd." Or: "Why don't you 
ask the Peyton-Smiths? They're nothing to be 
afraid of if they do cut a dash at Newport. The 
old girl is rather a pal of mine." 

So we drop old Washburn, cut out the Becketts, 
and take courage and invite the hyphenated 
Smiths. A hint from him pays handsome divi- 
dends! and he is distinctly proud of the family 
and anxious to push it along to still greater suc- 
cess. 

However, he has never asked my help or as- 
sistance — except in a financial way. He has 
never come to me for advice ; never confided any of 
his perplexities or troubles to me. 'Perhaps he has 
none. He seems quite sufficient unto himself. 
And he certainly is not my friend. It seems 
strange that these three children of mine, whose up- 
bringing has been the source of so much thought 
and planning on the part of my wife and myself, 

158 



MY CHILDREN 

and for whose ultimate benefit we have shaped our 
own lives, should be the merest, almost impersonal, 
acquaintances. 

The Italian fruit-vendor on the corner, whose 
dirty offspring crawl among the empty barrels be- 
hind the stand, knows far more of his children than 
do we of ours, will have far more influence on the 
shaping of their future lives. They do not need 
us now and they never have needed us. A trust 
company could have performed all the offices of 
parenthood with which we have been burdened. 
We have paid others to be father and mother in 
our stead — or rather, as I now see, have had hired 
servants to go through the motions for us; and 
they have done it well, so far as the mere physical 
side of the matter is concerned. We have been 
almost entirely relieved of care. 

We have never been annoyed by our children's 
presence at any time. We have never been both- 
ered with them at meals. We have never had to 
sit up with them when they could not go to sleep, 
or watch at their bedsides during the night when 
they were sick. Competent nurses — far more 

159 



« 



THE ^GOLDFISH" 

competent than we — washed their little dirty 
hands, mended the torn dresses and kissed their 
wounds to make them well. And when five 
o'clock came three dainty little Dresden figures 
in pink and blue ribbons were brought down to the 
drawing room to be admired by our guests. 
Then, after being paraded, they were carried back 
to the nursery to resume the even tenor of their in- 
dependent existences. 

No one of us has ever needed the other members 
of the family. My wife has never called on 
either of our daughters to perform any of those 
trifling intimate services that bring a mother and 
ker children together. There has always been a 
maid standing ready to hook up her dress, fetch 
her book or her hat, or a footman to spring up- 
stairs after the forgotten gloves. And the girls 
have never needed their mother — the governess 
could read aloud ever so much better, and they 
always had their own maid to look after their 
clothes. When they needed new gowns they sim- 
ply went downtown and bought them — and the 
bill was sent to my office. Neither of them was 

160 



MY CHILDREN 

ever forced to stay at home that her sister might 
have some pleasure instead. No; our wealth has 
made it possible for each of my children to enjoy 
every luxury without any sacrifice on another's 
part. They owe nothing to each other, and they 
really owe nothing to their mother or myself — 
except perhaps a monetary obligation. 

But there is one person, technically not one of 
our family, for whom my girls have the deepest 
and most sincere affection — that is old Jane, their 
Irish nurse, who came to them just after they were 
weaned and stayed with us until the period of 
maids and governesses arrived. I paid her twen- 
ty-five dollars a month, and for nearly ten years 
she never let them out of her sight — crooning over 
them at night; trudging after them during the 
daytime; mending their clothes; brushing their 
teeth; cutting their nails; and teaching them 
strange Irish legends of the banshee. When I 
called her into the library and told her the chil- 
dren were now too old for her and that they must 
have a governess, the look that came into her face 
haunted me for days. 

161 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"Ye '11 be after taking my darlin's away from 
me?" she muttered in a dead tone. " 'T will be 
hard for me I" She stood as if the heart had died 
within her, and the hundred-dollar bill I shoved 
into her hand fell to the floor. Then she turned 
quickly and hurried out of the room without a 
sob. I heard afterward that she cried for a week. 

Now I always know when one of their birth- 
days has arrived by the queer package, addressed 
in old Jane's quaint half-printed writing, that 
always comes. She has cared for many dozens 
of children since then, but loves none like my girls, 
for she came to them in her young womanhood and 
they were her first charges. 

And they are just as fond of her. Indeed it is 
their loyalty to this old Irish nurse that gives me 
faith that they are not the cold propositions they 
sometimes seem to be. For once when, after 
much careless delay, a fragmentary message came 
to us that she was ill and in a hospital my two 
daughters, who were just starting for a ball, flew 
to her bedside, sat with her all through the night 
and never left her until she was out of danger. 

162 



MY CHILDREN 

"They brought me back — my darlin's!" she 
whispered to us when later we called to see how 
she was getting on; and my wife looked at me 
across the rumpled cot and her lips trembled. I 
knew what was in her mind. Would her daugh- 
ters have rushed to her with the same forgetful- 
ness of self as to this prematurely gray and 
wrinkled woman whose shrunken form lay be- 
tween us? 

Poor old Jane ! Alone in an alien land, giving 
your life and your love to the children of others, 
only to have them torn from your arms just as 
the tiny fingers have entwined themselves like ten- 
drils round your heart ! We have tossed you the 
choicest blessings of our lives and shouldered you 
with the heavy responsibilities that should right- 
fully have been our load. Your cup has run over 
with both joy and sorrow; but you have drunk of 
the cup, while we are still thirsty ! Our hearts are 
dry, while yours is green — nourished with the love 
that should belong to us. Poor old Jane? Lucky 
old Jane ! Anyhow God bless you ! 



163 



CHAPTER IV 

MY MIND 

1C0ME of a family that prides itself on its 
culture and intellectuality. We have always 
been professional people, for my grandfather was, 
as I have said, a clergyman ; and among my uncles 
are a lawyer, a physician and a professor. My 
sisters, also, have intermarried with professional 
men. I received a fairly good primary and sec- 
ondary education, and graduated from my uni- 
versity with honors — whatever that may have 
meant. I was distinctly of a literary turn of 
mind; and during my four years of study I im- 
bibed some slight information concerning the Eng- 
lish classics, music, modern history and meta- 
physics. I could, talk quite wisely about Chaucer, 
Beaumont and Fletcher, Thomas Love Peacock 
and Ann Radcliffe, or Kant, Fichte and Schopen- 
hauer. 

164 



MY MIND 

I can see now that my smattering of culture was 
neither deep nor broad. I acquired no definite 
knowledge of underlying principles, of general his- 
tory, of economics, of languages, of mathematics, 
of physics or of chemistry. To biology and its 
allies I paid scarcely any attention at all, except 
to take a few snap courses. I really secured only 
a surface acquaintance with polite English liter- 
ature, mostly very modern. The main part of my 
time I spent reading Stevenson and Kipling. I 
did well in English composition and I pronounced 
my words neatly and in a refined manner. At the 
end of my course, when twenty-two years old, 
I was handed an imitation-parchment degree and 
proclaimed by the president of the college as be- 
longing to the Brotherhood of Educated Men. 

I did not. I was an imitation educated man; 
but, though spurious, I was a sufficiently good 
counterfeit to pass current for what I had been 
declared to be. Apart from a little Latin, a con- 
siderable training in writing the English language, 
and a great deal of miscellaneous reading of an 
extremely light variety, I really had no culture at 

165 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

all. I could not speak an idiomatic sentence in 
French or German; I had the vaguest ideas about 
applied mechanics and science; and no thorough 
knowledge about anything; but I was supposed to 
be an educated man, and on this stock in trade I 
have done business ever since — with, to be sure, 
the added capital of a degree of bachelor of laws. 

Now since my graduation, twenty-eight years 
ago, I have given no time to the systematic study 
of any subject except law. I have read no serious 
works dealing with either history, sociology, eco- 
nomics, art or philosophy. I am supposed to 
know enough about these subjects already. I 
have rarely read over again any of the master- 
pieces of English literature with which I had at 
least a bowing acquaintance when at college. 
Even this last sentence I must qualify to the ex- 
tent of admitting that I now see that this acquaint- 
ance was largely vicarious, and that I frequently 
read more criticism than literature. 

It is characteristic of modem education that it 
is satisfied with the semblance and not the sub- 
stance of learning. I was taught about Shaks- 

166 



MY MIND 

pere, but not Shakspere. I was instructed in the 
history of literature, but not in literature itself. 
I knew the names of the works of numerous Eng- 
lish authors and I knew what Taine and others 
thought about them, but I knew comparatively 
little of what was between the covers of the books 
themselves. I was, I find, a student of letters by 
proxy. As time went on I gradually forgot that 
I had not, in fact, actually perused these volumes ; 
and to-day I am accustomed to refer familiarly to 
works I never have read at all — not a difficult task 
in these days of handbook knowledge and literary 
varnish. 

It is this patent superficiality that so bores me 
with the affected culture of modern social inter- 
course. We all constantly attempt to discuss 
abstruse subjects in philosophy and art, and pre- 
tend to a familiarity with minor historical char- 
acters and events. Now why try to talk about 
Bergson's theories if you have not the most ele- 
mentary knowledge of philosophy or metaphysics *? 
Or why attempt to analyze the success or failure 

167 



THE ''GOLDFISH" 

of a modern post-impressionist painter when 
you are totally ignorant of the principles of 
perspective or of the complex problems of light 
and shade *? You might as properly presume to 
discuss a mastoid operation with a surgeon or the 
doctrine of cypres with a lawyer. You are 
equally qualified. 

I frankly confess that my own ignorance is 
abysmal. In the last twenty-eight years what in- 
formation I have acquired has been picked up 
principally from newspapers and magazines; yet 
my library table is littered with books on modern 
art and philosophy, and with essays on literary 
and historical subjects. I do not read them. 
They are my intellectual window dressings. I 
talk about them with others who, I suspect, have 
not read them either; and we confine ourselves to 
generalities, with a careful qualification of all ex- 
pressed opinions, no matter how vague and elu- 
sive. For example — a safe conversational open- 
ing: 

"Of course there is a great deal to be said in 
favor of Bergson's general point of view, but to 

168 



MY MIND 

me his reasoning is inconclusive. Don't you feel 
the same way — somehow?" 

You can try this on almost anybody. It will 
work in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred; for, 
of course, there is a great deal to be said in favor 
of the views of anybody who is not an absolute 
fool, and most reasoning is open to attack at least 
for being inconclusive. It is also inevitable that 
your cultured friend — or acquaintance — should 
feel the same way — somehow. Most people do — 
in a way. 

The real truth of the matter is, all I know about 
Bergson is that he is a Frenchman — is he actually 
by birth a Frenchman or a Belgian? — who as a 
philosopher has a great reputation on the Conti- 
nent, and who recently visited America to deliver 
some lectures. I have not the faintest idea what 
his theories are, and I should not if I heard him 
explain them. Moreover, I cannot discuss phi- 
losophy or metaphysics intelligently, because I 
have not to-day the rudimentary knowledge neces- 
sary to understand whatitj^jillj^out:. 

It is the same with art. On the one or two iso- 
169 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

late J varnishing days when we go to a gallery we 
criticize the pictures quite fiercely. ''We know 
what we like." Yes, perhaps we do. I am not 
sure even of that. But in eighty-five cases out of 
a hundred none of us have any knowledge of 
the history of painting or any intelligent idea 
of why Velasquez is regarded as a master; 
yet we acquire a glib familiarity with the names 
of half a dozen cubists or futurists, and bandy 
them about much as my office boy does the 
names of his favorite pugilists or baseball play- 
ers. 

It is even worse with history and biography. 
We cannot afford or have not the decency to ad- 
mit that we are uninformed. We speak casually 
of, say, Henry of Navarre, or Beatrice D'Este, or 
Charles the Fifth. I select my names intention- 
ally from among the most celebrated in history; 
yet how many of us know within two hundred 
years of when any one of them lived — or much 
about them? How much definite historical infor- 
mation have we, even about matters of genuine 
importance? 

170 



MY MIND 

Let us take a shot at a few dates. I will make 
it childishly easy. Give me, if you can, even ap- 
proximately^ the year of Csesar's Conquest of 
Gaul, the Invasion of Europe by the Huns; the 
Sack of Rome; the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne ; 
the Battle of Tours; the Crowning of Charle- 
magne; the Great Crusade; the Fall of Constan- 
tinople; Magna Charta; the Battle of Crecy; the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold; the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew; the Spanish Armada; the Execu- 
tion of King Charles I; the Fall of the Bastile; 
the Inauguration of George Washington ; the Bat- 
tle of Waterloo; the Louisiana Purchase; the 
Indian Mutiny; the Siege of Paris. 

I will look out of the window while you go 
through the mental agony of trying to remember. 
It looks easy, does it not? Almost an affront to 
ask the date of Waterloo ! Well, I wanted to be 
fair and even things up; but, honestly, can you 
answer correctly ^Yt out of these twenty elemen- 
tary questions? I doubt it. Yet you have, no 
doubt, lying on your table at the present time, in- 
timate studies of past happenings and persons that 

171 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

presuppose and demand a rough general knowl- 
edge of American, French or English history. 

The dean of Radcliffe College, who happened 
to be sitting behind two of her recent graduates 
while attending a performance of Parker's de- 
servedly popular play "Disraeli'* last winter, over- 
heard one of them say to the other: "You know, 
I could n't remember whether Disraeli was in the 
Old or the New Testament; and I looked in both 
and could n't find him in either !" 

I still pass socially as an exceptionally cultured 
man — one who is well up on these things; yet I 
confess to knowing to-day absolutely nothing of 
history, either ancient, medieval or modem. It 
is not a matter of mere dates, by any means, 
though I believe dates to be of some general im- 
portance. My ignorance is deeper than that. I 
do not remember the events themselves or their 
significance. I do not now recall any of the facts 
connected with the great epoch-making events of 
classic times; I cannot tell as I write, for example, 
who fought in the battle of the Allia; why Caesar 

172 



MY MIND 

crossed the Rubicon, or why Cicero delivered an 
oration against Catiline. 

As to what subsequently happened on the 
Italian peninsula my mind is a blank un- 
til the appearance of Garibaldi during the last 
century. I really never knew just who Garibaldi 
was until I read Trevelyan's three books on the 
Resorgimento last winter, and those I perused be- 
cause I had taken a motor trip through Italy the 
summer before. I know practically nothing of 
Spanish history, and my mind is a blank as to 
Russia, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, 
Austria, and Holland. 

Of course I know that the Dutch Republic rose 
— assisted by one Motley, of Boston — and that 
William of Orange was a Hollander — or at least 
I suppose he was born there. But how Holland 
came to rise I know not — or whether William was 
named after an orange or oranges were named 
after him. 

As for central Europe, it is a shocking fact 
that I never knew there was not some in- 
terdependency between Austria and Germany until 

173 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

last summer. I only found out the contrary 
when I started to motor through the Austrian Ty- 
rol and was held up by the custom officers on the 
frontier. I knew that an old emperor named 
William somehow founded the German Empire 
out of little states, with the aid of Bismarck and 
Von Moltke ; but that is all I know about it. I do 
not know when the war between Prussia and Aus- 
tria took place or what battles were fought in it. 
The only battle in the Franco-Prussian War I 
am sure of is Sedan, which I remember because I 
was once told that Phil Sheridan was present as 
a spectator. I know Gustavus Adolphus was a 
king of Sweden, but I do not know when; and 
apart from their names I know nothing of 
Theodoric, Charles Martel, Peter the Hermit, 
Lodovico Moro, the Emperor Maximilian, Cath- 
erine of Aragon, Catherine de' Medici, Richelieu, 
Frederick Barbarossa, Cardinal Wolsey, Prince 
Rupert — I do not refer to Anthony Hope's hero, 
Rupert of Hentzau — Saint Louis, Admiral Co- 
ligny, or the thousands of other illustrious person- 
ages that crowd the pages of history. 

174 



MY MIND 

I do not know when or why the Seven Years' 
War, the Thirty Years' War, the Hundred Years' 
War or the Massacre of St. Bartholomew took 
place, why the Edict of Nantes was revoked or 
what it was, or who fought at Malplaquet, Tours, 
Soissons, Marengo, Plassey, Oudenarde, Fontenoy 
or Borodino — or when they occurred. I prob- 
ably did know most if not all of these things, but I 
have entirely forgotten them. Unfortunately I 
manage to act as if I had not. The result is that, 
having no foundation to build on, any informa- 
tion I do acquire is immediately swept away. 
People are constantly giving me books on special 
topics, such as Horace Walpole and his Friends, 
France in the Thirteenth Century, The Holland 
House Circle, or Memoirs of Madame du Barry; 
but of what use can they be to me when I 
do not know, or at least have forgotten,, even 
the salient facts of French and English his- 
tory^ 

We are undoubtedly the most superficial people 
in the world about matters of this sort. Any bluff 
goes. I recall being at a dinner not long ago when 

175 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

somebody mentioned Conrad II. One of the 
guests hazarded the opinion that he had died in the 
year 1330. This would undoubtedly have passed 
muster but for a learned-looking person farther 
down the table who deprecatingly remarked: "I 
do not like to correct you, but I think Conrad the 
Second died in 1337!" The impression created 
on the assembled company cannot be overstated. 
Later on in the smoking room I ventured to com- 
pliment the gentleman on his fund of information, 
saying: 

"Why, I never even heard of Conrad the Sec- 
ond!" 

"Nor I either," he answered shamelessly. 

It is the same with everything — music, poetry, 
politics. I go night after night to hear the best 
music in the world given at fabulous cost in the 
Metropolitan Opera House and am content to 
murmur vague ecstasies over Caruso, without be- 
ing aware of who wrote the opera or what it is all 
about. Most of us know nothing of orchestration 
or even the names of the different instruments. 
We may not even be sure of what is meant by 

176 



MY MIND 

counterpoint or the difference between a fugue and 
an arpeggio. 

A handbook would give us these minor details 
in an hour's reading; but we prefer to sit vacuously 
making feeble jokes about the singers or the oc- 
cupants of the neighboring boxes, without a single 
intelligent thought as to why the composer at- 
tempted to write precisely this sort of an opera, 
when he did it, or how far he succeeded. We are 
content to take our opinions and criticisms ready 
made, no matter from whose mouth they fall; 
and one hears everywhere phrases that, once let 
loose from the Pandora's Box of some foolish 
brain, never cease from troubling. 

In science I am in even a more parlous state. I 
know nothing of applied electricity in its simplest 
forms. I could not explain the theory of the 
gas engine, and plumbing is to me one of the great 
mysteries. 

Last, but even more lamentable, I really know 
nothing about politics, though I am rather a strong 
party man and my name always appears on im- 
portant citizens' committees about election time. 

177 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

I do not know anything about the city departments 
or its fiscal administration. I should not have 
the remotest idea where to direct a poor person 
who applied to me for relief. Neither have I ever 
taken the trouble to familiarize myself with even 
the more important city buildings. 

Of course I know the City Hall by sight, but I 
have never been inside it; I have never visited the 
Tombs or any one of our criminal courts; I have 
never been in a police station, a fire house, or in- 
spected a single one of our prisons or reformatory 
institutions. I do not know whether police mag- 
istrates are elected or appointed and I could not 
tell you in what congressional district I reside. I 
do not know the name of my alderman, assembly- 
man, state senator or representative in Congress. 

I do not know who is at the head of the Fire De- 
partment, the Street Cleaning Department, the 
Health Department, the Park Department or the 
Water Department; and I could not tell, except 
for the Police Department, what other depart- 
ments there are. Even so, I do not know what 
police precinct I am living in, the name of the 

178 



MY MIND 

captain in command, or where the nearest fixed 
post is at which an officer is supposed to be on 
duty. 

As I write I can name only five members of the 
United States Supreme Court, three members of 
the Cabinet, and only one of the congressmen from 
the state of New York. This in cold type seems 
almost preposterous, but it is, nevertheless, a 
fact — and I am an active practicing lawyer be- 
sides. I am shocked to realize these things. Yet 
I am supposed to be an exceptionally intelligent 
member of the community and my opinion is fre- 
quently sought on questions of municipal politics. 

Needless to say, the same indifference has pre- 
vented my studying — except in the most super- 
ficial manner — the single tax, free trade and pro- 
tection, the minimum wage, the recall, referen- 
dum, or any other of the present much-mooted 
questions. How is this possible? The only 
answer I can give is that I have confined my 
mental activities entirely to making my legal prac- 
tice as lucrative as possible. I have taken things 
as I found them and put up with abuses rather 

179 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

than go to the trouble to do away with them. I 
have no leisure to try to reform the universe. I 
leave that task to others whose time is less valu- 
able than mine and who have something to gain 
by getting into the public eye. 

The mere fact, however, that I am not inter- 
ested in local politics would not ordinarily, in a 
normal state of civilization, explain my ignorance 
of these things. In most societies they would be 
the usual subjects of conversation. People natu- 
rally discuss what interests them most. Unedu- 
cated people talk about the weather, their work, 
their ailments and their domestic affairs. With 
more enlightened folk the conversation turns on 
broader topics — the state of the country, politics, 
trade, or art. 

It is only among the so-called society people 
that the subjects selected for discussion do not in- 
terest anybody. Usually the talk that goes on 
at dinners or other entertainments relates only to 
what plays the conversationalists in question have 
seen or which of the best sellers they have read. 
For the rest the conversation is dexterously de- 

180 



MY MIND 

voted to the avoidance of the disclosure of igno- 
rance. Even among those who would like to dis- 
cuss the questions of the day intelligently and to 
ascertain other people's views pertaining to them, 
there is such a fundamental lack of elementary in- 
formation that it is a hopeless undertaking. They 
are reduced to the common places of vulgar and 
superficial comment. 

" 'Tis plain," cry they, "our mayor 's a noddy; 
and as for the corporation — shocking I" 

The mayor may be and probably is a noddy, but 
his critics do not know why. The average woman 
who dines out hardly knows what she is saying 
or what is being said to her. She will usu- 
ally agree with any proposition that is put to her 
— if she has heard it. Generally she does not lis- 
ten. 

I know a minister's wife who never pays the 
slightest attention to anything that is being said 
to her, being engrossed in a torrent of explanation 
regarding her children's education and minor dis- 
eases. Once a bored companion in a momentary 
pause fixed her sternly with his eye and said dis- 

181 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

tinctly: "But I don't give a about your 

children!" At which the lady smiled brightly 
and replied : "Yes. Quite so. Exactly ! As I 
was saying, Johnny got a — " 

But, apart from such hectic people, who run 
quite amuck whenever they open their mouths, 
there are large numbers of men and women of 
some intelligence who never make the effort to ex- 
press conscientiously any ideas or opinions. They 
find it irksome to think. They are completely in- 
different as to whether a play is really good or bad 
or who is elected mayor of the city. In any event 
they will have their coffee, rolls and honey served 
in bed the next morning; and they know that, 
come what will — flood, tempest, fire or famine — 
there will be forty-six quarts of extra xxx milk left 
at their area door. They are secure. The stock 
market may rise and fall, presidents come and go, 
but they will remain safe in the security of fifty 
thousand a year. And, since they really do not 
care about anything, they are as likely to praise 
as to blame, and to agree with everybody about 
everything. Their world is all cakes and ale — 

182 



MY MIND 

why should they bother as to whether the pothouse 
beer is bad'? 

I confess, with something of a shock, that es- 
sentially I am like the rest of these people. The 
reason I am not interested in my country and my 
city is because, by reason of my financial and so- 
cial independence, they have ceased to be my city 
and country. I should be just as comfortable if 
our Government were a monarchy. It really is 
nothing to me whether my tax rate is six one- 
hundredths of one per cent higher or lower, or 
what mayor rules in City Hall. 

So long as Fifth Avenue is decently paved, so 
that my motor runs smoothly when I go to the 
opera, I do not care whether we have a Reform, 
Tammany or Republican administration in the 
city. So far as I am concerned, my valet will still 
come into my bedroom at exactly nine o'clock 
every morning, turn on the heat and pull back the 
curtains. His low, modulated "Your bath is 
ready, sir," will steal through my dreams, and he 
will assist me to rise and put on my embroidered 
dressing gown of wadded silk in preparation for 

183 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

another day's hard labor in the service of my fel- 
lowmen. Times have changed since my father's 
frugal college days. Have they changed for bet- 
ter or for worse? 

Of one thing I am certain — my father was a 
better-educated man than I am. I admit that, un- 
der the circumstances, this does not imply very 
much; but my parent had, at least, some solid 
ground beneath his intellectual feet on which he 
could stand. His mind was thoroughly disci- 
plined by rigid application to certain serious 
studies that were not selected by himself. From 
the day he entered college he was in active com- 
petition with his classmates in all his studies, and 
if he had been a shirker they would all have known 
it. 

In my own case, after I had once matriculated, 
the elective system left me free to choose my own 
subjects and to pursue them faithfully or not, so 
long as I could manage to squeak through my ex- 
aminations. My friends were not necessarily 
among those who elected the same courses, and 

184 



MY MIND 

whether I did well or ill was nobody's business but 
my own and the dean's. It was all very pleasant 
and exceedingly lackadaisical, and by the time I 
graduated I had lost whatever power of concen- 
tration I had acquired in my preparatory schooling. 
At the law school I was at an obvious disad- 
vantage with the men from the smaller colleges 
which still followed the old-fashioned curriculum 
and insisted on the mental discipline entailed by 
advanced Greek, Latin, the higher mathematics, 
science and biology. 

In point of fact I loafed delightfully for four 
years and let my mind run absolutely to seed, 
while I smoked pipe after pipe under the elms, 
watching the squirrels and dreaming dreams. I 
selected elementary — almost childlike — courses in 
a large variety of subjects; and as soon as I had 
progressed sufficiently to find them difficult I cast 
about for other snaps to take their places. My 
bookcase exhibited a collection of primers on 
botany, zoology and geology, the fine arts, music, 
elementary French and German, philosophy, 
ethics, metaphysics, architecture, English composi- 

185 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

tion, Shakspere, the English poets and novelists, 
oral debating and modern history. 

I took nothing that was not easy and about 
which I did not already know a little something. 
I attended the minimum number of lectures re- 
quired, did the smallest amount of reading possi- 
ble and, by cramming vigorously for three weeks 
at the end of the year, managed to pass all exami- 
nations creditably. I averaged, I suppose, outside 
of the lecture room, about a single hour's desultory 
work a day. I really need not have done that. 

When, for example, it came time to take the 
examination in French composition I discovered 
that I had read but two out of the fifteen plays 
and novels required, the plots of any one of which 
I might be asked to give on my paper. Rather 
than read these various volumes, I prepared a 
skeleton digest in French, sufficiently vague, which 
could by slight transpositions be made to do serv- 
ice in every case. I committed it to memory. It 
ran somewhat as follows: 

"The play" — or novel — "entitled is 

generally conceded to be one of the most carefully 

186 



MY MIND 

constructed and artistically developed of all 

's" — here insert name of author — "many 

masterly productions. The genius of the author 
has enabled him skilfully to portray the at- 
mosphere and characters of the period. The 

scene is laid in and the time roughly is that 

of the th century. The hero is ; the 

heroine, — ; and after numerous obstacles and 

ingenious complications they eventually marry. 

The character of the old " — here insert 

father, mother, uncle or grandparent, gardener or 
family servant — "is delightfully whimsical and 
humorous, and full of subtle touches. The tragic 

element is furnished by , the . The 

author touches with keen satire on the follies and 
vices of the time, while the interest in the principal 
love affair is sustained until the final denouement. 
Altogether it would be difficult to imagine a more 
brilliant example of dramatic — or literary — 
art." 

I give this rather shocking example of sopho- 
moric shiftlessness for the purpose of illustrating 
my attitude toward my educational opportunities 

187 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

and what was possible in the way of dexterously 
avoiding them. All I had to do was to learn the 
names of the chief characters in the various plays 
and novels prescribed. If I could acquire a brief 
scenario of each so much the better. Invariably 
they had heroes and heroines, good old servants 
or grandparents, and merry jesters. At the exam- 
ination I successfully simulated familiarity with 
a book I had never read and received a commenda- 
tory mark. 

This happy-go-lucky frame of mind was by no 
means peculiar to myself. Indeed I believe it to 
have been shared by the great majority of my class- 
mates. The result was that we were sent forth 
into the world without having mastered any sub- 
ject whatsoever, or even followed it for a suffi- 
cient length of time to become sincerely interested 
in it. The only study I pursued more than one 
year was English composition, which came easily 
to me, and which in one form or another I fol- 
lowed throughout my course. Had I adopted the 
same tactics with any other of the various branches 
open to me, such as history, chemistry or lan- 

188 



MY MIND 

guages, I should not be what I am to-day — a hope- 
lessly superficial man. 

Mind you, I do not mean to assert that I got 
nothing out of it at all. Undoubtedly I absorbed 
a smattering of a variety of subjects that might 
on a pinch pass for education. I observed how 
men with greater social advantages than myself 
brushed their hair, wore their clothes and took off 
their hats to their women friends. Frankly that 
was about everything I took away with me. I 
was a victim of that liberality of opportunity 
which may be a heavenly gift to a post-graduate 
in a university, but which is intellectual damna- 
tion to an undergraduate collegian. 

The chief fault that I have to find with my 
own education, however, is that at no time was I 
encouraged to think for myself. No older man 
ever invited me to his study, there quietly and 
frankly to discuss the problems of human exist- 
ence. I was left entirely vague as to what it was 
all about, and the relative values of things were 
never indicated. The same emphasis was placed 

189 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

on everything — whether it happened to be the 
Darwinian Theory, the Fall of Jerusalem or the 
character of Ophelia. 

I had no philosophy, no theory of morals, and 
no one ever even attempted to explain to me what 
religion or the religious instinct was supposed to 
be. I was like a child trying to build a house and 
gathering materials of any substance, shape or 
color without regard to the character of the in- 
tended edifice. I was like a man trying to get 
somewhere and taking whatever paths suited his 
fancy — first one and then another, irrespective 
of where they led. The Why and the Wherefore 
were unknown questions to me, and I left the uni- 
versity without any idea as to how I came 
to be in the world or what my duties toward my 
fellowmen might be. 

In a word the two chief factors in education 
passed me by entirely — (a) my mind received no 
discipline; (b) and the fundamental propositions 
of natural philosophy were neither brought to my 
attention nor explained to me. These deficiencies 
have never been made up. Indeed, as to the first, 

190 



I 



MY MIND 

my mind, instead of being developed by my going 
to college, was seriously injured. My memory 
has never been good since and my methods of 
reading and thinking are hurried and slipshod, 
but this is a small thing compared with the lack 
of any philosophy of life. I acquired none as a 
youth and I have never had any since. For 
fifty years I have existed without any guiding 
purpose except blindly to get ahead — without any 
religion, either natural or dogmatic. I am one 
of a type — a pretty good, perfectly aimless man, 
without any principles at all. 

They tell me that things have changed at the 
universities since my day and that the elective 
system is no longer in favor. Judging by my own 
case, the sooner it is abolished entirely, the better 
for the undergraduate. I should, however, sug- 
gest one important qualification — namely, that a 
boy be given the choice in his Freshman year of 
three or four general subjects, such as philosophy, 
art, history, music, science, languages or literature, 
and that he should be compelled to follow the 
subjects he elects throughout his course. 

191 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

In addition I believe the relation of every study 
to the whole realm of knowledge should be care- 
fully explained. Art cannot be taught apart from 
history; history cannot be grasped independently 
of literature. Religion, ethics, science and phi- 
losophy are inextricably involved one with an- 
other. 

But mere learning or culture, a knowledge of 
facts or of arts, is unimportant as compared with a 
realization of the significance of life. The one is 
superficial — the other is fundamental; the one is 
temporal — the other is spiritual. There is no 
more wretched human being than a highly trained 
but utterly purposeless man — which, after all, is 
only saying that there is no use in having an edu- 
cation without a religion; that unless some one is 
going to live in the house there is not much use 
in elaborately furnishing it. 

I am not attempting to write a treatise on 
pedagogy; but, when all is said, I am inclined to 
the belief that my unfortunate present condition, 
whatever my material success may have been, is 
due to lack of education — in philosophy in its 

192 



MY MIND 

broadest sense ; in mental discipline ; and in actual 
acquirement. 

It is in this last field that my deficiencies and 
those of my class are superficially most apparent. 
A wide fund of information may be less important 
than a knowledge of general principles, but it is 
none the less valuable; and all of us ought to be 
equipped with the kind of education that will en- 
able us to understand the world of men as well as 
the world of nature. 

It is, of course, essential for us to realize that 
the physical characteristics of a continent may 
have more influence on the history of nations than 
mere wars or battles, however far-reaching the 
foreign policies of their rulers ; but, in addition to 
an appreciation of this and similar underlying 
propositions governing the development of civiliza- 
tion, the educated man who desires to study the 
problems of his own time and country, to follow 
the progress of science and philosophy, and to 
enjoy music, literature and art, must have a cer- 
tain elementary equipment of mere facts. 

The oriental attitude of mind that enabled the 
193 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

Shah of Persia calmly to decline the invitation of 
the Prince of Wales to attend the Derby, on the 
ground that "he knew one horse could run faster 
than another," is foreign to that of Western civili- 
zation. The Battle of Waterloo is a flyspeck in 
importance contrasted with the problem of future 
existence; but the man who never heard of Na- 
poleon would make a dull companion in this world 
or the next. 

We live in direct proportion to the keenness of 
our interest in life ; and the wider and broader this 
interest is, the richer and happier we are. A man 
is as big as his sympathies, as small as his selfish- 
"ness. '^ The yokel thinks only of his dinner and his 
snooze under the hedge, but the man of education 
rejoices in every new production of the human 
brain. 

Advantageous intercourse between civilized 
human beings requires a working knowledge of 
the elementary facts of history, of the achieve- 
ments in art, music and letters, as well as of the 
principles of science and philosophy. When 
people go to quarreling over the importance 

194 



MY MIND 

of a particular phase of knowledge or edu- 
cation they are apt to forget that, after all, it is 
a purely relative matter, and that no one can rea- 
sonably belittle the value of any sort of informa- 
tion. But furious arguments arise over the ques- 
tion as to how history should be taught, and 
"whether a boy's head should be crammed full of 
dates." Nobody in his senses would want a boy's 
head crammed full of dates any more than he 
would wish his stomach stuffed with bananas ; but 
both th^ head and the stomach need some nourish- 
ment — better dates than nothing. 

If a knowledge of a certain historical event 
is of any value whatsoever, the greater and 
more detailed our knowledge the better — includ- 
ing perhaps, but not necessarily, its date. The 
question is not essentially whether the dates are of 
value, but how much emphasis should be placed 
on them to the exclusion of other facts of history. 

"There is no use trying to remember dates," is a 
familiar cry. There is about as much sense in 
such a statement as the announcement: "There 
is no use trying to remember who wrote Henry 

195 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

Esmond, composed the Fifth Symphony, or 
painted the Last Supper." There is a lot of use 
in trying to remember anything. The people who 
argue to the contrary are too lazy to try. 

I suppose it may be conceded, for the sake of 
argument, that every American, educated or not, 
should know the date of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and have some sort of acquaintance with 
the character and deeds of Washington. If we 
add to this the date of the discovery of America 
and the first English settlement; the inauguration 
of the first president ; the Louisiana Purchase ; the 
Naval War with England; the War with Mexico; 
the Missouri Compromise, and the firing on Fort 
Sumter, we cannot be accused of pedantry. It 
certainly could not do any one of us harm to know 
these dates or a little about the events themselves. 

This is equally true, only in a lesser degree, in 
regard to the history of foreign nations. Any 
accurate knowledge is worth while. It is harder, 
in the long run, to remember a date slightly wrong 
than with accuracy. The dateless man, who is 

196 



MY MIND 

as vague as I am about the League of Cambray 
or Philip II, will loudly assert that the trouble 
incident to remembering a date in history is a pure 
waste of time. He will allege that "a general 
idea" — a very favorite phrase — is all that is neces- 
sary. In the case of such a person you can safely 
gamble that his so-called "general idea" is no idea 
at all. Pin him down and he will not be able to 
tell you within five hundred years the dates of 
some of the cardinal events of European history — 
the invasion of Europe by the Huns, for instance. 
Was it before or after Christ? He might just as 
well try to tell you that it was quite enough to 
know that our Civil War occurred somewhere in 
the nineteenth century. 

I have personally no hesitation in advancing 
the claim that there are a few elementary princi- 
ples and fundamental facts in all departments of 
human knowledge which every person who expects 
to derive any advantage from intelligent society 
should not only once learn but should forever re- 
member. Not to know them is practically the 
same thing as being without ordinary means of 

197 



THE "GOLDFISH'^ 

communication. One may not find it necessary 
to remember the binomial theorem or the algebraic 
formula for the contents of a circle, but he should 
at least have a formal acquaintance with Julius 
Csesar, Hannibal, Charlemagne, Martin Luther, 
Francis I, Queen Elizabeth, Louis XIV, Na- 
poleon I — and a dozen or so others. An edu- 
cated man must speak the language of educated 
men. 

I do not think it too much to demand that in 
history he should have in mind, at least approxi- 
mately, one important date in each century in the 
chronicles of France, England, Italy and Germany. 
That is not much, but it is a good start. And 
shall we say ten dates in American history? He 
should, in addition, have a rough working knowl- 
edge of the chief personages who lived in these 
centuries and were famous in war, diplomacy, art, 
religion and literature. His one little date will 
at least give him some notion of the relation 
the events in one country bore to those in an- 
other. 

I boldly assert that in a half hour you can learn 
198 



MY MIND 

by heart all the essential dates in American his- 
tory. I assume that you once knew, and perhaps 
still know, something about the events themselves 
with which they are connected. Ten minutes a 
day for the rest of the week and you will have 
them at your fingers' ends. It is no trick at all. 
It is as easy as learning the names of the more im- 
portant parts of the mechanism of your motor. 
There is nothing impossible or difficult, or even 
tedious, about it; but it seems Herculean because 
you have never taken the trouble to try to remem- 
ber anything. It is the same attitude that renders 
it almost physically painful for one of us to read 
over the scenario of an opera or a column biogra- 
phy of its composer before hearing a performance 
at the Metropolitan. Yet fifteen minutes or half 
an hour invested in this way pays about five hun- 
dred per cent. 

And the main thing, after you have learned any- 
thing, is not to forget it. Knowledge forgotten 
is no knowledge at all. That is the trouble with 
the elective system as usually administered in our 
universities. At the end of the college year the 

199 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

student tosses aside his Elements of Geology and 
forgets everything between its covers. What he 
has learned should be made the basis for other and 
more detailed knowledge. The instructor should 
go on building a superstructure on the foundation 
he has laid, and at the end of his course the as- 
pirant for a diploma should be required to pass 
an examination on his entire college work. Had 
I been compelled to do that, I should probably be 
able to tell now — what I do not know — whether 
Melancthon was a painter, a warrior, a diplomat, 
a theologian or a dramatic poet. 

I have instanced the study of dates because they 
are apt to be the storm center of discussions con- 
cerning education. It is fashionable to scoff at 
them in a superior manner. We all of us loathe 
them; yet they are as indispensable — a certain 
number of them — as the bones of a body. They 
make up the skeleton of history. They are the 
orderly pegs on which we can hang later acquired 
information. If the pegs are not there the infor- 
mation will fall to the ground. 

For example, our entire conception of the Refor- 

200 



MY MIND 

mation, or of any intellectual or religious move- 
ment, might easily turn on whether it preceded or 
followed the discovery of printing; and our men- 
tal picture of any great battle, as well as our 
opinion of the strategy of the opposing armies, 
would depend on whether or not gunpowder had 
been invented at the time. Hence the importance 
of a knowledge of the dates of the invention of 
printing and of gunpowder in Europe. 

It is ridiculous to allege that there is no min- 
imum of education, to say nothing of culture, 
which should be required of every intelligent hu- 
man being if he is to be but a journeyman in so- 
ciety. In an unconvincing defense of our own 
ignorance we loudly insist that detailed knowl- 
edge of any subject is mere pedagogy, a hindrance 
to clear thinking, a superfluity. We do not say 
so, to be sure, with respect to knowledge in gen- 
eral; but that is our attitude in regard to any 
particular subject that may be brought up. Yet 
to deny the value of special information is 
tantamount to an assertion of the desirability of 
general ignorance. It is only the politician who 

201 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

can afford to say: "Wide knowledge is a fatal 
handicap to forcible expression." 

This is not true of the older countries. In 
Germany, for instance, a knowledge of natural 
philosophy, languages and history is insisted 
on. To the German schoolboy, George Wash- 
ington is almost as familiar a character as 
Columbus ; but how many American children know 
anything of Bismarck *? The ordinary educated 
foreigner speaks at least two languages and usually 
three, is fairly well grounded in science, and is per- 
fectly familiar with ancient and modem history. 
The American college graduate seems like a child 
beside him so far as these things are concerned. 

We are content to live a hand-to-mouth mental 
existence on a haphazard diet of newspapers and 
the lightest novels. We are too lazy to take the 
trouble either to discipline our minds or to acquire, 
as adults, the elementary knowledge necessary to 
enable us to read intelligently even rather super- 
ficial books on important questions vitally affect- 
ing our own social, physical, intellectual or moral 
existences. 

202 



MY MIND 

If somebody refers to Huss or Wyclif ten to 
one we do not know of whom he is talking; the 
same thing is apt to be true about the draft of 
the hot-water furnace or the ball and cock of the 
tank in the bathroom. Inertia and ignorance are 
the handmaidens of futility. Heaven forbid that 
we should let anybody discover this aridity of our 
minds ! 

My wife admits privately that she has forgotten 
all the French she ever knew — could not even 
order a meal from a carte de jour; yet she is a 
never-failing source of revenue to the counts and 
marquises who yearly rush over to New York to 
replenish their bank accounts by giving parlor lec- 
tures in their native tongue on Le XllV""^ Steele 
or Madame Lebrun. No one would ever guess 
that she understands no more than one word out 
of twenty and that she has no idea whether Tal- 
leyrand lived in the fifteenth or the eighteenth 
century, or whether Calvin was a Frenchman or a 
Scotchman. 

Our clever people are content merely with being 
clever. They will talk Tolstoi or Turgenieff with 

203 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

you, but they are quite vague about Catherine II 
or Peter the Great. They are up on D'Annuncio, 
but not on Garibaldi or Cavour. Our ladies wear 
a false front of culture, but they are quite bald 
underneath. 

Being educated, however, does not consist, by 
any means, in knowing who fought and won cer- 
tain battles or who wrote the Novum Organum. 
It lies rather in a knowledge of life based on the 
experience of mankind. Hence our study of his- 
tory. But a study of history in the abstract is 
valueless. It must be concrete, real and living to 
have any significance for us. The schoolboy who 
learns by rote imagines the Greeks as outline 
figures of one dimension, clad in helmets and 
tunics, and brandishing little swords. That is like 
thinking of Jeanne d'Arc as a suit of armor or of 
Theodore Roosevelt as a pair of spectacles. 

If the boy is to gain anything by his acquaint- 
ance with the Greeks he must know what they ate 
and drank, how they amused themselves, what 
they talked about, and what they believed as to 

204 



MY MIND 

the nature and origin of the universe and the prob- 
ability of a future life. I hold that it is as im- 
portant to know how the Romans told time as 
that Nero fiddled while his capital was burning. 
William the Silent was once just as much alive 
as P. T. Barnum, and a great deal more worth 
while. It is fatal to regard historical personages 
as lay figures and not as human beings. 

We are equally vague with respect to the ordi- 
nary processes of our daily lives. I have not the 
remotest idea of how to make a cup of coffee or dis- 
connect the gas or water mains in my own house. 
If my sliding door sticks I send for the carpenter, 
and if water trickles in the tank I telephone for 
the plumber. I am a helpless infant in the stable 
and my motor is the creation of a Frankenstein 
that has me at its mercy. My wife may recall 
something of cookery — which she would not admit, 
of course, before the butler — but my daughters 
have never been inside a kitchen. None of my 
family knows anything about housekeeping or the 
prices of foodstuffs or house- furnishings. My coal 
and wood are delivered and paid for without my 

205 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

quiring as to the correctness of the bills, and I 
offer the same temptations to dishonest tradesmen 
that a drunken man does to pickpockets. Yet I 
complain of the high cost of living! 

My family has never had the slightest training 
in practical affairs. If we were cast away on a 
fertile tropical island we should be forced to sub- 
sist on bananas and clams, and clothe ourselves 
with leaves, — ^provided the foliage was ready 
made and came in regulation sizes. 

These things are vastly more important from an 
educational point of view than a knowledge of the 
relationship of Mary Stuart to the Duke of Guise, 
however interesting that may be to a reader of 
French history of the sixteenth century. A knowl- 
edge of the composition of gunpowder is more 
valuable than of Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot. 
If we know nothing about household economies 
we can hardly be expected to take an interest in 
the problems of the proletariat. If we are igno- 
rant of the fundamental data of sociology and 
politics we can have no real opinions on questions 
affecting the welfare of the people. 

206 



MY MIND 

The classic phrase "The public be damned!" 
expresses our true feeling about the matter. We 
cannot become excited about the wrongs and hard- 
ships of the working class when we do not know 
and do not care how they live. One of my daugh- 
ters — aged seven — once essayed a short story, of 
which the heroine was an orphan child in direst 
want. It began : *'Corinne was starving. 'Alas I 
What shall we do for food*?' she asked her French 
nurse as they entered the carriage for their after- 
noon drive in the park." I have no doubt that 
even to-day this same young lady supposes that 
there are porcelain baths in every tenement house. 

I myself have no explanation as to why I pay 
eighty dollars for a business suit and my book- 
keeper seems to be equally well turned out for 
eighteen dollars and fifty cents. That is essen- 
tially why the people have an honest and well- 
founded distrust of those enthusiastic society 
ladies who rush into charity and frantically en- 
gage in the elevation of the masses. The poor 
working girl is apt to know a good deal more 
about her own affairs than the Fifth Avenue ma- 

207 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

tron with an annual income of three hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars. 

If I were doing it all over again — and how I 
wish I could! — I should insist on my girls being 
taught not only music and languages but cooking, 
sewing, household economy and stenography. 
They should at least be able to clothe and feed 
themselves and their children if somebody supplied 
them with the materials, and to earn a living if 
the time came when they had to do it. They 
have now no conception of the relative values of 
even material things, what the things are made of 
or how they are put together. For them hats, 
shoes, French novels and roast chicken can be 
picked off the trees. 

This utter ignorance of actual life not only 
keeps us at a distance from the people of our own 
time but renders our ideas of history equally vague, 
abstract and unprofitable. I believe it would be 
an excellent thing if, beginning with the age of 
about ten years, no child were allowed to eat any- 
thing until he was able to tell where it was pro- 

208 



MY MIND 

duced, what it cost and how it was prepared. If 
this were carried out in every department of the 
child's existence he would have small need of the 
superficial education furnished by most of our in- 
stitutions of learning. Our children are taught 
about the famines of history when they cannot rec- 
ognize a blade of wheat or tell the price of a loaf 
of bread, or how it is made. 

I would begin the education of my boy — him 
of the tango and balkline billiards — with a study 
of himself, in the broad use of the term, before I 
allowed him to study about other people or the his- 
tory of nations. I would seat him in a chair by 
the fire and begin with his feet. I would inquire 
what he knew about his shoes — what they were 
made of, where the substance came from, the cost 
of its production, the duty on leather, the process 
of manufacture, the method of transportation of 
goods, freight rates, retailing, wages, repairs, how 
shoes were polished — this would begin, if desired, 
a new line of inquiry as to the composition of said 
polish, cost, and so on — comparative durability of 
hand and machine work, introduction of machines 

209 



THE ^^GOLDFISH ' 

into England and its effect on industrial condi- 
tions. I say I would do all this ; but, of course, I 
could not. I would have to be an educated man 
in the first place. Why, beginning with that 
dusty little pair of shoes, my boy and I might soon 
be deep in Interstate Commerce and the Theory of 
Malthus — on familiar terms with Thomas A. Edi- 
son and Henry George ! 

And the next time my son read about a Tam- 
many politician giving away a pair of shoes to 
each of his adherents it would mean something to 
him — as much as any other master stroke of diplo- 
macy. 

I would instruct every boy in a practical knowl- 
edge of the house in which he lives, give him a 
familiarity with simple tools and a knowledge of 
how to make small repairs and to tinker with the 
water pipes. I would teach him all those things I 
now do not know myself — where the homeless man 
can find a night's lodging; how to get a disorderly 
person arrested; why bottled milk costs fifteen 
cents a quart ; how one gets his name on the ballot 
if he wants to run for alderman; where the Health 

210 



MY MIND 

Department is located, and how to get vaccinated 
for nothing. 

By the time we had finished we would be in a 
position to understand the various editorials in 
the morning papers which now we do not read. 
Far more than that, my son would be brought to 
a realization that everything in the world is full 
of interest for the man who has the knowledge to 
appreciate its significance. "A primrose by a 
river's brim" should be no more suggestive, even 
to a lake-poet, than a Persian rug or a rubber shoe. 
Instead of the rug he will have a vision of the 
patient Afghan in his mountain village working 
for years with unrequited industry; instead of the 
shoe he will see King Leopold and hear the lamen- 
tations of the Congo. 

My ignorance of everything beyond my own 
private bank account and stomach is due to the 
fact that I have selfishly and foolishly regarded 
these two departments as the most important fea- 
tures of my existence. I now find that my finan- 
cial and gastronomical satisfaction has been 
purchased at the cost of an infinite delight 

211 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

in other things. I am mentally out of condi- 
tion. 

Apart from this brake on the wheel of my intel- 
ligence, however, I suffer an even greater impedi- 
ment by reason of the fact that, never having ac- 
quired a thorough groundwork of elementary 
knowledge, I find I cannot read with either pleas- 
ure or profit. Most adult essays or histories pre- 
suppose some such foundation. 

Recently I have begun to buy primers — such 
as are used in the elementary schools — in order to 
acquire the information that should have been 
mine at twenty years of age. And I have resolved 
that in my daily reading of the newspapers I will 
endeavor to look up on the map and remember the 
various places concerning which I read any news 
item of importance, and to assimilate the facts 
themselves. It is my intention also to study, at 
least half an hour each day, some simple 
treatise on science, politics, art, letters or history. 
In this way I hope to regain some of my interest 
in the activities of mankind. If I cannot do this 
I realize now that it will go hard with me in the 

212 



MY MIND 

years that are drawing nigh. I shall, indeed, then 
lament that "I have no pleasure in them." 

It is the common practice of business men to 
say that when they reach a certain age they are 
going to quit work and enjoy themselves. How 
this enjoyment is proposed to be attained varies 
in the individual case. One man intends to travel 
or live abroad — usually, he believes, in Paris. 
Another is going into ranching or farming. Still 
another expects to give himself up to art, music 
and books. We all have visions of the time when 
we shall no longer have to go downtown every day 
and can indulge in those pleasures that are now 
beyond our reach. 

Unfortunately the experience of humanity dem- 
onstrates the inevitability of the law of Nature 
which prescribes that after a certain age it is prac- 
tically impossible to change our habits, either of 
work or of play, without physical and mental 
misery. 

Most of us take some form of exercise through- 
out our lives — riding, tennis, golf or walking. 

213 



THE '^GOLDFISH" 

This we can continue to enjoy in moderation after 
our more strenuous days are over; but the manu- 
facturer, stock broker or lawyer who thinks that 
after his sixtieth birthday he is going to be able to 
find permanent happiness on a farm, loafing round 
Paris or reading in his library will be sadly disap- 
pointed. His habit of work will drive him back, 
after a year or so of wretchedness, to the factory, 
the ticker or the law office; and his habit of play 
will send him as usual to the races, the club or 
the variety show. 

One cannot acquire an interest by mere volition. 
It is a matter of training and of years. The 
pleasures of to-day will eventually prove to be the 
pleasures of our old age — ^provided they continue 
to be pleasures at all, which is more than doubtful. 

As we lose the capacity for hard work we shall 
find that we need something to take its place — 
something more substantial and less unsatisfac- 
tory than sitting in the club window or taking m 
the Broadway shows. But, at least, the seeds of 
these interests must be sown now if we expect to 
gather a harvest this side of the grave. 

214 



MY MIND 

What is more natural than to believe that in 
our declining years we shall avail ourselves of the 
world's choicest literature and pass at least a sub- 
stantial portion of our days in the delightful com- 
panionship of the wisest and wittiest of mankind^ 
That would seem to be one of the happiest uses 
to which good books could be put; but the hope is 
vain. The fellow who does not read at fifty will 
take no pleasure in books at seventy. 

My club is full of dozens of melancholy exam- 
ples of men who have forgotten how to read. 
They have spent their entire lives perfecting the 
purely mechanical aspects of their existences. 
The mind has practically ceased to exist, so far 
as they are concerned. They have built marvelous 
mansions, where every comfort is instantly fur- 
nished by contrivances as complicated and accurate 
as the machinery of a modem warship. The doors 
and windows open and close, the lights are turned 
on and off, and the elevator stops — all automatic- 
ally. If the temperature of a room rises above a 
certain degree the heating apparatus shuts itself 
off; if it drops too low something else happens to 

215 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

put it right again. The servants are swift, silent 
and decorous. The food is perfection. Their 
motors glide noiselessly to and fro. Their es- 
tablishments run like fine watches. 

They have had to make money to achieve this 
mechanical perfection ; they have had no time for 
anything else during their active years. And, now 
that those years are over, they have nothing to do. 
Their minds are almost as undeveloped as those 
of professional pugilists. Dinners and drinks, 
backgammon and billiards, the lightest opera, the 
trashiest novels, the most sensational melodrama 
are the most elevating of their leisure's activities. 
Read*? Hunt? Farm'? Not much! They sit 
behind the plate-glass windows and bet on whether 
more limousines will go north than south in the 
next ten minutes. 

If you should ask one of them whether he had 
read some book that was exciting discussion among 
educated people at the moment, he would probably 
look at you blankly and, after remarking that he 
had never cared for economics or history — as the 
case might be — inquire whether you preferred a 

216 



MY MIND 

"Blossom" or a 'Tornado." Poor vacuous old 
cocks ! They might be having a green and hearty 
old age, surrounded by a group of the choicest 
spirits of all time. 

Upstairs in the library there are easy-chairs 
within arm's reach of the best fellows who ever 
lived — adventurers, story-tellers, novelists, ex- 
plorers, historians, rhymers, fighters, essayists, 
vagabonds and general liars — Immortals, all of 
them. 

You can take your pick and if he bores you send 
him packing without a word of apology. They 
are good friends to grow old with — friends who 
in hours of weariness, of depression or of gladness 
may be summoned at will by those of us who be- 
long to the Brotherhood of Educated Men — of 
which, alas! I and my associates are no longer 
members. 



217 



CHAPTER V 

MY MORALS 

THE concrete evidence of my success as repre- 
sented by my accumulated capital — outside 
of my uptown dwelling house — amounts, as I 
have previously said, to about seven hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars. This is invested princi- 
pally in railroad and mining stocks, both of which 
are subject to considerable fluctuation; and I have 
also substantial holdings in industrial corpora- 
tions. Some of these companies I represent pro- 
fessionally. As a whole, however, my investments 
may be regarded as fairly conservative. At any 
rate they cause me little uneasiness. 

My professional income is regular and comes 
with surprisingly little effort. I have as clients 
six manufacturing corporations that pay me re- 
tainers of twenty-five hundred dollars each, be- 
sides my regular fees for services rendered. I also 
represent two banks and a trust company. 

218 



MY MORALS 

All this is fixed business and most of it is at- 
tended to by younger men, whom I employ at 
moderate salaries. I do almost no detail work 
myself, and my junior partners relieve me of the 
drawing of even important papers ; so that, though 
I am constantly at my office, my time is spent in 
advising and consulting. 

I dictate all my letters and rarely take a pen in 
my hand. Writing has become laborious and irk- 
some. I even sign my correspondence with an 
ingenious rubber stamp that imitates my scrawling 
signature beyond discovery. If I wish to know 
the law on some given point I press a button and 
tell my managing clerk what I want. In an hour 
or two he hands me the authorities covering the 
issue in question in typewritten form. It is ex- 
traordinarily simple and easy. Yet only yester- 
day I heard of a middle-aged man, whom I knew 
to be a peculiarly well-equipped all-round lawyer, 
who was ready to give up his private practice and 
take a place in any reputable office at a salary of 
thirty-five hundred dollars! 

Most of my own time is spent in untangling 
219 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

mixed puzzles of law and fact, and my clients are 
comparatively few in number, though their inter- 
ests are large. Thus I see the same faces over and 
over again. I lunch daily at a most respectable 
eating club; and here, too, I meet the same men 
over and over again. I rarely make a new ac- 
quaintance downtown; in fact I rarely leave my 
office during the day. If I need to confer with 
any other attorney I telephone. There are dozens 
of lawyers in New York whose voices I know well 
— ^yet whose faces I have never seen. 

My office is on the nineteenth floor of a white 
marble building, and I can look down the harbor 
to the south and up the Hudson to the north. I 
sit there in my window like a cliffdweller at the 
mouth of his cave. When I walk along Wall 
Street I can look up at many other hundreds of 
these caves, each with its human occupant. We 
leave our houses uptown, clamber down into a 
tunnel called the Subway, are shot five miles or 
so through the earth, and debouch into an ele- 
vator that rushes us up to our caves. Only be- 
tween my house and the entrance to the Subway 

220 



MY MORALS 

am I obliged to step into the open air at all. A 
curious life! And I sit in my chair and talk to 
people in multitudes of other caves near by, or 
caves in New Jersey, Washington or Chicago. 

Louis XI used to be called "the human spider" 
by reason of his industry, but we modern office 
men are far more like human spiders than he, as 
we sit in the center of our webs of invisible wires. 
We wait and wait, and our lines run out across 
the length and breadth of the land — sometimes 
getting tangled, to be sure, so that it is frequently 
difficult to decide just which spider owns the web; 
but we sit patiently doing nothing save devising 
the throwing out of other lines. 

We weave, but we do not build ; we manipulate, 
buy, sell and lend, quarrel over the proceeds, and 
cover the world with our nets, while the ants and 
the bees of mankind labor, construct and manu- 
facture, and struggle to harness the forces of Na- 
ture. We plan and others execute. We dicker, 
arrange, consult, cajole, bribe, pull our wires and 
extort; but we do it all in one place — the center 
of our webs and the webs are woven in our caves. 

221 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

I figure that I spend about six hours each 
day in my office; that I sleep nearly nine hours; 
that I am in transit on surface cars and in subways 
at least one hour and a half more; that I occupy 
another hour and a half in bathing, shaving and 
dressing, and an hour lunching at midday. This 
leaves a margin of five hours a day for all other 
activities. 

Could even a small portion of this time be spent 
consecutively in reading in the evening, I could 
keep pace with current thought and literature much 
better than I do; or if I spent it with my son and 
daughters I should know considerably more about 
them than I do now, which is practically nothing. 
But the fact is that every evening from the first 
of November to the first of May the motor comes 
to the door at five minutes to eight and my wife 
and I are whirled up or down town to a dinner 
party — that is, save on those occasions when eight- 
een or twenty people are whirled to us. 

This short recital of my daily activities is suffi- 
cient to demonstrate that I lead an exceedingly 

222 



MY MORALS 

narrow and limited existence. I do not know any 
poor men, and even the charities in which I am 
nominally interested are managed by little groups 
of rich ones. The truth is, I learned thirty years 
ago that if one wants to make money one must 
go where money is and cultivate the people who 
have it. I have no petty legal business — there is 
nothing in it. If I cannot have millionaires for 
clients I do not want any. The old idea that the 
young country lawyer could shove a pair of socks 
into his carpetbag, come to the great city, hang 
out his shingle and build up a practice has long 
since been completely exploded. The best he can 
do now is to find a clerkship at twelve hundred 
dollars a year. 

Big business gravitates to the big offices; and 
when the big firms look round for junior partners 
they do not choose the struggling though brilliant 
young attorney from the country, no matter how 
large his general practice may have become; but 
they go after the youth whose father is a director 
in forty corporations or the president of a trust. 

In the same way what time I have at my dis- 
223 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

posal to cultivate new acquaintances I devote not 
to the merely rich and prosperous but to the multi- 
millionaire — if I can find him — who does not even 
know the size of his income. I have no time to 
waste on the man who is simply earning enough 
to live quietly and educate his family. He can- 
not throw anything worth while in my direction; 
but a single crumb from the magnate's table may 
net me twenty or thirty thousand dollars. Thus, 
not only for social but for business reasons, suc- 
cessful men affiliate habitually only with rich peo- 
ple. I concede that is a rather sordid admission, 
but it is none the less the truth. 

Money is the symbol of success; it is what we 
are all striving to get, and we naturally select the 
ways and means best adapted for the purpose. 
One of the simplest is to get as near it as possible 
and stay there. If I make a friend of a struggling 
doctor or professor he may invite me to draw his 
will, which I shall either have to do for nothing 
or else charge him fifty dollars for; but the rail- 
road president with whom I often lunch, and who 
is just as agreeable personally, may perhaps ask 

224 



MY MORALS 

me to reorganize a railroad. I submit that, selfish 
as it all seems when I write it down, it would be 
hard to do otherwise. 

I do not deliberately examine each new candi- 
date for my friendship and select or reject him 
in accordance with a financial test; but what I do 
is to lead a social and business life that will 
constantly throw me only with rich and power- 
ful men. I join only rich men's clubs; I go to 
resorts in the summer frequented only by rich peo- 
ple; and I play only with those who can, if they 
will, be of advantage to me. I do not do this 
deliberately; I do it instinctively — now. I sup- 
pose at one time it was deliberate enough, but 
to-day it comes as natural as using my automo- 
bile instead of a street car. 

We have heard a great deal recently about a 
so-called Money Trust. The truth of the matter 
is that the Money Trust is something vastly 
greater than any mere aggregation of banks; it 
consists in our fundamental trust in money. It is 
based on our instinctive and ineradicable belief 
that money rules the destinies of mankind. 

225 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

Everything is estimated by us in money. A 
man is worth so and so much — in dollars. The 
millionaire takes precedence of everybody, except 
at the White House. The rich have things their 
own way — and every one knows it. Ashamed of 
it? Not at all. We are the greatest snobs in 
the civilized world, and frankly so. We worship 
wealth because at present we desire only the things 
wealth can buy. 

The sea, the sky, the mountains, the clear air 
of autumn, the simple sports and amusements of 
our youth and of the comparatively poor, pleasures 
in books, in birds, in trees and flowers, are disre- 
garded for the fierce joys of acquisition, of the 
ownership in stocks and bonds, or for the no less 
keen delight in the display of our own financial 
superiority over our fellows. 

We know that money is the key to the door of 
society. Without it our sons will not get into the 
polo-playing set or our daughters figure in the 
Sunday supplements. We want money to buy 
ourselves a position and to maintain it after we 
have bought it. 

226 



MY MORALS 

We want houses on the sunny side of the street, 
with f agades of graven marble ; we want servants 
in livery and in buttons — or in powder and 
breeches if possible; we want French chefs and 
the best wine and tobacco, twenty people to din- 
ner on an hour's notice, supper parties and a little 
dance afterward at Sherry's or Delmonico's, a 
box at the opera and for first nights at the theaters, 
two men in livery for our motors, yachts and thir- 
ty-footers, shooting boxes in South Carolina, sal- 
mon water in New Brunswick, and regular vaca- 
tions, besides, at Hot Springs, Aiken and Palm 
Beach ; we want money to throw away freely and 
like gentlemen at Canfield's, Bradley's and Monte 
Carlo; we want clubs, country houses, saddle- 
horses, fine clothes and gorgeously dressed women ; 
we want leisure and laughter, and a trip or so to 
Europe every year, our names at the top of the so- 
ciety column, a smile from the grand dame in the 
tiara and a seat at her dinner table — these are the 
things we want, and since we cannot have them 
without money we go after the money first, as the 
sine qua non. 

227' 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

We want these things for ourselves and we want 
them for our children. We hope our grandchil- 
dren will have them also, though about that we 
do not care so much. We want ease and security 
and the relief of not thinking whether we can 
afford to do things. We want to be lords of 
creation and to pass creation on to our descendants, 
exactly as did the nobility of the Ancien Regime. 

At the present time money will buy anything, 
from a place in the vestry of a swell church to a 
seat in the United States Senate — an election to 
Congress, a judgeship, or a post in the diplomatic 
service. It will buy the favor of the old families 
or a decision in the courts. Money is the con- 
trolling factor in municipal politics in New York. 
The moneyed group of Wall Street wants an 
amenable mayor — a Tammany mayor preferred — 
so that it can put through its contracts. You al- 
ways know where to find a regular politician. 
One always knew where to find Dick Croker. So 
the Traction people pour the contents of their 
coffers into the campaign bags. 

Until very recently the Supreme Court judges 
228 



MY MORALS 

of New York County bought their positions by 
making substantial contributions to the Tammany 
treasury. The inferior judgeships went con- 
siderably cheaper. A man who stood in with the 
Big Boss might get a bargain. I have done busi- 
ness with politicians all my life and I have never 
found it necessary to mince my words. If I 
wanted a favor I always asked exactly what it 
was going to cost — and I always got the favor. 

No one needs to hunt very far for cases where 
the power of money has influenced the bench in 
recent times. The rich man can buy his son 
a place in any corporation or manufacturing com- 
pany. The young man may go in at the bottom, 
but he will shoot up to the top in a year or two, 
with surprising agility, over the heads of a couple 
of thousand other and better men. The rich man 
can defy the law and scoff at justice; while the 
poor man, who cannot pay lawyers for delay, goes 
to prison. These are the veriest platitudes of 
demagogy, but they are true — absolutely and un- 
deniably true. 

We know all this and we act accordingly, and 
229 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

our children imbibe a like knowledge with their 
mother's or whatever other properly sterilized 
milk we give them as a substitute. We, they and 
everybody else know that if enough money can 
be accumulated the possessor will be on Easy 
Street for the rest of his life — not merely the Easy 
Street of luxury and comfort, but of security, privi- 
lege and power; and because we like Easy Street 
rather than the Narrow Path we devote ourselves 
to getting there in the quickest possible way. 

We take no chances on getting our reward in 
the next world. We want it here and now, while 
we are sure of it — on Broadway, at Newport or 
in Paris. We do not fool ourselves any longer 
into thinking that by self-sacrifice here we shall 
win happiness in the hereafter. That is all right 
for the poor, wretched and disgruntled. Even the 
clergy are prone to find heaven and hell in this 
world rather than in the life after death; and the 
decay of faith leads us to feel that a purse of gold 
in the hand is better than a crown of the same 
metal in the by and by. We are after happiness, 
and to most of us money spells it. 

230 



MY MORALS 

The man of wealth is protected on every side 
from the dangers that beset the poor. He can 
buy health and immunity from anxiety, and he 
can install his children in the same impregnable 
position. The dust of his motor chokes the citi- 
zen trudging home from work. He soars through 
life on a cushioned seat, with shock absorbers to 
alleviate all the bumps. No wonder we trust in 
money! We worship the golden calf far more 
than ever did the Israelites beneath the crags of 
Sinai. The real Money Trust is the tacit con- 
spiracy by which those who have the money en- 
deavor to hang on to it and keep it among them- 
selves. Neither at the present time do great 
fortunes tend to dissolve as inevitably as formerly. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes somewhere analyzes 
the rapid disintegration of the substantial fortunes 
of his day and shows how it is, in fact, but "three 
generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves." A 
fortune of two hundred thousand dollars divided 
among four children, each of whose share is di- 
vided among four grandchildren, becomes prac- 
tically nothing at all — in only two. But could 

231 



THE ^GOLDFISH" 

the good doctor have observed the tendencies of 
to-day he would have commented on a new phe- 
nomenon, which almost counteracts the other. 

It may be, and probably is, the fact that com- 
paratively small fortunes still tend to disintegrate. 
This was certainly the rule during the first half of 
the nineteenth century in New England, when 
there was no such thing as a distinctly moneyed 
class, and when the millionaire was a creature only 
of romance. But when, as to-day, fortunes are so 
large that it is impossible to spend or even success- 
fully give away the income from them, a new ele- 
ment is introduced that did not exist when Doctor 
Holmes used to meditate in his study on the Back 
Bay overlooking the placid Charles. 

At the present time big fortunes are apt to gain 
by mere accretion what they lose by division ; and 
the owner of great wealth has opportunities for 
investment undreamed of by the ordinary citizen 
who must be content with interest at four per cent 
and no unearned increment on his capital. This 
fact might of itself negative the tendency of which 
he speaks; but there is a much more potent force 

232 



MY MORALS 

working against it as well. That is the absolute 
necessity, induced by the demands of modern 
metropolitan life, of keeping a big fortune to- 
gether — or, if it must be divided, of rehabilitating 
it by marriage. 

There was a time not very long ago when one 
rarely heard of a young man or young woman of 
great wealth marrying anybody with an equal for- 
tune. To do so was regarded with disapproval, 
and still is in some communities. To-day it is 
the rule instead of the exception. Now we habit- 
ually speak in America of the "alliances of great 
families." There are two reasons for this — first, 
that being a multimillionaire is becoming, as it 
were, a sort of recognized profession, having its 
own sports, its own methods of business and its 
own interests; second, that the luxury of to-day 
is so enervating and insidious that a girl or youth 
reared in what is called society cannot be com- 
fortable, much less happy, on the income of less 
than a couple of million dollars. 

As seems to be demonstrated by the table of 
my own modest expenditure in a preceding article, 

233 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

the income of but a million dollars will not sup- 
port any ordinary New York family in anything 
like the luxury to which the majority of our young 
people — even the sons and daughters of men in 
moderate circumstances — are accustomed. 

Our young girls are reared on the choicest va- 
rieties of food, served with piquant sauces to tempt 
their appetites; they are permitted to pick and 
choose, and to refuse what they think they do not 
like; they are carried to and from their schools, 
music and dancing lessons in motors, and are 
taught to regard public conveyances as unheal thful 
and inconvenient; they never walk; they are given 
clothes only a trifle less fantastic and bizarre than 
those of their mothers, and command the services 
of maids from their earliest years ; they are taken 
to the theater and the hippodrome, and for the 
natural pleasures of childhood are given the ex- 
citement of the footlights and the arena. 

As they grow older they are allowed to attend 
late dances that necessitate remaining in bed the 
next morning until eleven or twelve o'clock; they 
are told that their future happiness depends on 

234 



MY MORALS 

their ability to attract the right kind of man; 
they are instructed in every art save that of being 
useful members of society ; and in the ease, luxury 
and vacuity with which they are surrounded their 
lives parallel those of demimondaines. Indeed, 
save for the marriage ceremony, there is small 
difference between them. The social butterfly 
flutters to the millionaire as naturally as the night 
moth of the Tenderloin. Hence the tendency to 
marry money is greater than ever before in the 
history of civilization. 

Frugal, thrifty lives are entirely out of fashion. 
The solid, self-respecting class, which wishes to 
associate with people of equal means, is becoming 
smaller and smaller. If an ambitious mother can- 
not afford to rent a cottage at Newport or Bar 
Harbor she takes her daughter to a hotel or board- 
ing house there, in the hope that she will be thrown 
in contact with young men of wealth. The young 
girl in question, whose father is perhaps a hard- 
working doctor or business man, at home lives 
simply enough ; but sacrifices are made to send her 
to a fashionable school, where her companions fill 

235 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

her ears with stories of their motors, trips to Eu- 
rope, and the balls they attend during the vaca- 
tions. She becomes inoculated with the poison of 
social ambition before she comes out. 

Unable by reason of the paucity of the family 
resources to buy luxuries for herself, she becomes 
a parasite and hanger-on of rich girls. If she is 
attractive and vivacious so much the better. Like 
the shopgirl blinded by the glare of Broad- 
way, she flutters round the drawing rooms and 
country houses of the ultra-rich seeking to make 
a match that will put luxury within her grasp; 
but her chances are not so good as formerly. 

To-day the number of large fortunes has in- 
creased so rapidly that the wealthy young man has 
no difficulty in choosing an equally wealthy mate 
whose mental and physical attractions appear, and 
doubtless are, quite as desirable as those of the 
daughter of poorer parents. The same instinct 
to which I have confessed myself, as a professional 
man, is at work among our daughters and sons. 
They may not actually judge individuals by the 
sordid test of their ability to purchase ease and 

236 



MY MORALS 

luxury, but they take care to meet and associate 
with only those who can do so. 

In this their parents are their ofttimes uncon- 
scious accomplices. The worthy young man of 
chance acquaintance is not invited to call — or, if 
he is, is not pressed to stay to dinner. "Oh, he 
does not know our crowd!" explains the girl to 
herself. The crowd, on analysis, will probably 
be found to contain only the sons and daughters 
of fathers and mothers who can entertain lavishly 
and settle a million or so on their offspring at 
marriage. 

There is a constant attraction of wealth for 
wealth. Poverty never attracted anything. If 
our children have money of their own that is a 
good reason to us why they should marry more 
money. We snarl angrily at the penniless youth, 
no matter how capable and intelligent, who dares 
cast his eyes on our daughter. We make it quite 
unambiguous that we have other plans for her — 
plans that usually include a steam yacht and a 
shooting box north of Inverness. 

There is nothing more vicious than the com- 

237 



THE ^'GOLDFISH" 

monly expressed desire of parents in merely mod- 
erate circumstances to give their children what 
are ordinarily spoken of as "opportunities." "We 
wish our daughters to have every opportunity — 
the best opportunities," they say, meaning an equal 
chance with richer girls of qualifying themselves 
for attracting wealthy men and of placing them- 
selves in their way. In reality opportunities for 
what*? — of being utterly miserable for the rest of 
their lives unless they marry out of their own class. 

The desire to get ahead that is transmitted from 
the American business man to his daughter is the 
source of untold bitterness — for, though he him- 
self may fail in his own struggle, he has never- 
theless had the interest of the game; but she, an 
old maid, may linger miserably on, unwilling to 
share the domestic life of some young man more 
than her equal in every respect. 

There is a subtle freemasonry among those who 
have to do with money. Young men of family 
are given sinecures in banks and trust companies, 
and paid many times the salaries their services are 
worth. The inconspicuous lad who graduates' 

238 



MY MORALS 

from college the same year as one who comes from 
a socially prominent family will slave in a down- 
town office eight hours a day for a thousand 
dollars a year, while his classmate is bowing in the 
ladies at the Fifth Avenue Branch — from ten to 
three o'clock — at a salary of five thousand dol- 
lars. Why? Because he knows people who 
have money and in one way or another may be 
useful sometime to the president in a social way. 

The remuneration of those of the privileged 
class who do any work at all is on an entirely 
different basis from that of those who need it. 
The poor boy is kept on as a clerk, while the rich 
one is taken into the firm. The old adage says 
that ''Kissing goes by favor"; and favors, finan- 
cial and otherwise, are given only to those who can 
offer something in return. The tendency to con- 
centrate power and wealth extends even to the 
outer rim of the circle. It is an intangible con- 
spiracy to corner the good things and send the poor 
away empty. As I see it going on round me, it is 
a heartless business. 

Society is like an immense swarm of black bees 
239 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

settled on a honey-pot. The leaders, who flew 
there first, are at the top, gorged and distended. 
Round, beneath and on them crawl thousands of 
others thirsting to feed on the sweet, liquid gold. 
The pot is covered with them, layer on layer — 
buzzing hungrily; eager to get as near as possible 
to the honey, even- if they may not taste it. A 
drop falls on one and a hundred fly on him and 
lick it off. The air is alive with those who are 
circling about waiting for an advantageous chance 
to wedge in between their comrades. They will, 
with one accord, sting to death any hapless crea- 
ture who draws near. 

Frankly I should not be enough of a man to 
say these things if my identity were disclosed, 
however much they ought to be said. Neither 
should I make the confessions concerning my 
own career that are to follow; for, though they 
may evidence a certain shrewdness on my own 
part, I do not altogether feel that they are to my 
credit. 

When my wife and I first came to New York 
240 



MY MORALS 

our aims and ideals were simple enough. I had 
letters to the head of a rather well-known firm on 
Wall Street and soon found myself its managing 
clerk at one hundred dollars a month. The busi- 
ness transacted in the office was big business — 
corporation work, the handling of large estates, 
and so on. During three years I was practically 
in charge of and responsible for the details of 
their litigations ; the net profit divided by the two 
actual members of the firm was about one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars. The gross was about 
one hundred and eighty thousand, of which twenty 
thousand went to defray the regular office expenses 
— including rent, stenographers and ordinary law 
clerks — while ten thousand was divided among 
the three men who actually did most of the work. 
The first of these was a highly trained lawyer 
about forty-five years of age, who could handle 
anything from a dog-license matter before a police 
justice to the argument of a rebate case in the 
United States Supreme Court. He was paid 
forty-five hundred dollars a year and was glad to 
get it. He was the active man of the office. The 

241 



THE "GOLDFISH'* 

second man received thirty-five hundred dollars, 
and for that sum furnished all the special knowl- 
edge needed in drafting railroad mortgages and 
intricate legal documents of all sorts. The third 
was a chap of about thirty who tried the 
smaller cases and ran the less important cor- 
porations. 

The two heads of the firm devoted most of their 
time to mixing with bankers, railroad officials and 
politicians, and spent comparatively little of it 
at the office ; but they got the business — somehow. 
I suppose they found it because they went out af- 
ter it. It was doubtless quite legitimate. Some- 
body must track down the game before the hunter 
can do the shooting. At any rate they managed 
to find plenty of it and furnished the work for 
the other lawyers to do. 

I soon made up my mind that in New York 
brains were a pretty cheap commodity. I was 
anxious to get ahead ; but there was no opening in 
the firm and there were others ready to take my 
place the moment it should become vacant. I was 
a pretty fair lawyer and had laid by in the bank 

242 



MY MORALS 

nearly a thousand dollars ; so I went to the head of 
the firm and made the proposition that I should 
work at the office each day until one o'clock and 
be paid half of what I was then getting — that is, 
fifty dollars a month. In the afternoons an un- 
derstudy should sit at my desk, while I should be 
free. 

I then suggested that the firm might divide 
with me the proceeds of any business I should bring 
in. My offer was accepted; and the same after- 
noon I went to the office of a young stockbroker 
I knew and stayed there until three o'clock. The 
next day I did the same thing, and the day after. 
I did not buy any stocks, but I made myself agree- 
able to the group about the ticker and formed the 
acquaintance of an elderly German, who was in 
the chewing-gum business and who amused him- 
self playing the market. 

It was not long before he invited me to lunch 
with him and I took every opportunity to impress 
him with my legal acumen. He had a lawyer of 
his own already, but I soon saw that the impres- 
sion I was making would have the effect I desired; 

243 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

and presently, as I had confidently expected, he 
gave me a small legal matter to attend to. Need- 
less to say it was accomplished with care, celerity 
and success. He gave me another. For six 
months I dogged that old German's steps every 
day from one o'clock in the afternoon until twelve 
at night. I walked, talked, drank beer and played 
pinocle with him, sat in his library in the evenings, 
and took him and his wife to the theater. 

At the end of that period he discharged his for- 
mer attorney and retained me. The business was 
easily worth thirty-five hundred dollars a year, and 
within a short time the Chicle Trust bought out his 
interests and I became a director in it and one of 
its attorneys. 

I had already severed my connection with the 
firm and had opened an office of my own. Among 
the directors in the trust with whom I was thrown 
were a couple of rich young men whose fathers had 
put them on the board merely for purposes of rep- 
resentation. These I cultivated with the same as- 
siduity as I had used with the German. I spent 
my entire time gunning for big game. I went 

244 



MY MORALS 

after the elephants and let the sparrows go. It 
was only a month or so before my acquaintance 
with these two boys — for they were little else — 
had ripened into friendship. My wife and I were 
invited to visit at their houses and I was placed in 
contact with their fathers. From these I soon 
began to get business. I have kept it — kept it to 
myself. I have no real partners to steal it away 
from me. 

I am now the same kind of lawyer as the two 
men who composed the firm for which I slaved at 
a hundred dollars a month. I find the work for 
my employees to do. I am now an exploiter of 
labor. It is hardly necessary for me to detail the 
steps by which I gradually acquired what is known 
as a gilt-edged practice ; but it was not by virtue of 
my legal abilities, though they are as good as the 
average. I got it by putting myself in the eye of 
rich people in every way open to me. I even 
joined a fashionable church — it pains me to write 
this — for the sole purpose of becoming a member 
of the vestry and thus meeting on an intimate foot- 
ing the half-dozen millionaire merchants who com- 

245 



THE ^'GOLDFISH" 

posed it. One of them gave me his business, made 
me his trustee and executor; and then I resigned 
from the vestry. 

I always made myself 'persona grata to those 
who could help me along, wore the best clothes I 
could buy, never associated with shabby people^ 
and appeared as much as possible in the company 
of my financial betters. It was the easier for me 
to do this because my name was not Irish, German 
or Hebraic. I had a good appearance, manners 
and an agreeable gloss of culture and refinement. 
I was tactful, considerate, and tried to strike a 
personal note in my intercourse with people who 
were worth while; in fact I made it a practice — 
and still do so — to send little mementos to my 
newer acquaintances — a book or some such trifle 
— with a line expressing my pleasure at having 
met them. 

I know a considerable number of doctors, as well 
as lawyers, who have built up lucrative practices 
by making love to their female clients and pa- 
tients. That I never did ; but I always made it a 
point to flatter any women I took in to dinner, and 

246 



MY MORALS 

I am now the trustee or business adviser for at 
least half a dozen wealthy widows as a direct con- 
sequence. 

One reason for my success is, I discovered very 
early in the game that no woman believes she 
really needs a lawyer. She consults an attorney 
not for the purpose of getting his advice, but for 
sympathy and his approval of some course she has 
already decided on and perhaps already followed. 
A lawyer who tells a woman the truth thereby loses 
a client. He has only to agree with her and com- 
pliment her on her astuteness and sagacity to in- 
trench himself forever in her confidence. 

A woman will do what she wants to do — every 
time. She goes to a lawyer to explain why she in- 
tends to do it. She wants to have a man about on 
whom she can put the blame if necessary, and is 
willing to pay — moderately — for the privilege. 
She talks to a lawyer when no one else is willing to 
listen to her, and thoroughly enjoys herself. He 
is the one man who — unless he is a fool — cannot 
talk back. 

Another fact to which I attribute a good deal 
247 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

of my professional eclat is, that I never let any of 
my social friends forget that I was a lawyer as 
well as a good fellow ; and I always threw a hearty 
bluff at being prosperous, even when a thousand or 
two was needed to cover the overdraft in my bank 
account. It took me about ten years to land my- 
self firmly among the class to which I aspired, and 
ten years more to make that place impregnable. 

To-day we are regarded as one of the older if 
not one of the old families in New York. I no 
longer have to lick anybody's boots, and until I 
began to pen these memoirs I had really forgotten 
that I ever had. Things come my way now almost 
of themselves. All I have to do is to be on hand 
in my ofRce — cheerful, hospitable, with a good 
story or so always on tap. My junior force does 
the law work. Yet I challenge anybody to point 
out anything dishonorable in those tactics by which 
I first got my feet on the lower rungs of the ladder 
of success. 

It may perhaps be that I should prefer to write 
down here the story of how, simply by my assidu- 
ity and learning, I acquired such a reputation for 

248 



MY MORALS 

a knowledge of the law that I was eagerly sought 
out by a horde of clamoring clients who forced im- 
portant litigations on me. Things do not happen 
that way in New York to-day. 

Should a young man be blamed for getting on 
by the easiest way he can^ Life is too complex; 
the population too big. People have no accurate 
means of finding out who the really good lawyers 
or doctors are. If you tell them you are at the 
head of your profession they are apt to believe you, 
particularly if you wear a beard and are sur- 
rounded by an atmosphere of solemnity. Only 
a man's intimate circle knows where he is or what 
he is doing at any particular time. 

I remember a friend of mine who was an exceed- 
ingly popular member of one of the exclusive Fifth 
Avenue clubs, and who, after going to Europe for 
a short vacation, decided to remain abroad for a 
couple of years. At the end of that time he re- 
turned to New York hungry for his old life and 
almost crazy with delight at seeing his former 
friends. Entering the club about five o'clock he 
happened to observe one of them sitting by the 

249 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

window. He approached him enthusiastically, 
slapped him on the shoulder, extended his hand 
and cried: 

"Hello, old man I It's good to see you 
again !" 

The other man looked at him in a puzzled sort 
of way without moving. 

"Hello, yourself I" he remarked languidly. 
"It 's good to see you, all right — but why make so 
much damned fuss about it?" 

The next sentence interchanged between the two 
developed the fact that he was totally ignorant 
that his friend had been away at all. This is by 
no means a fantastic illustration. It happens 
every day. That is one of the joys of living in 
New York. You can get drunk, steal a million 
or so, or run off with another man's wife — and no 
one will hear about it until you are ready for some- 
thing else. In such a community it is not extraor- 
dinary that most people are taken at their face 
value. Life moves at too rapid a pace to allow 
us to find out much about anybody — even our 
friends. One asks other people to dinner simply 

250 



MY MORALS 

because one has seen them at somebody's else 
house. 

I found it at first very difficult — in fact almost 
impossible — to spur my wife on to a satisfactory 
cooperation with my efforts to make the hand of 
friendship feed the mouth of business. She rather 
indignantly refused to meet my chewing-gum 
client or call on his wife. She said she preferred 
to keep her self-respect and stay in the boarding- 
house where we had resided since we moved to the 
city ; but I demonstrated to her by much argument 
that it was worse than snobbish not to be decently 
polite to one's business friends. It was not their 
fault if they were vulgar. One might even help 
them to enlarge their lives. Gradually she came 
round; and as soon as the old German had given 
me his business she was the first to suggest moving 
to an apartment hotel uptown. 

For a long time, however, she declined to make 
any genuine social effort. She knew two or three 
women from our neighborhood who were living in 
the city, and she used to go and sit with them in 
the afternoons and sew and help take care of the 

251 



THE 'GOLDFISH'* 

children. She said they and their husbands were 
good enough for her and that she had no aspira- 
tions toward society. An evening at the theater — 
in the balcony — every two weeks or so, and a rub- 
ber of whist on Saturday night, with a chafing-dish 
supper afterward, was all the excitement she 
needed. That was twenty-five years ago. To-day 
it is I who would put on the brakes, while she in- 
sists on shoveling soft coal into the social furnace. 
Her metamorphosis was gradual but complete. 
I imagine that her first reluctance to essay an ac- 
quaintance with society arose out of embarrassment 
and bashfulness. At any rate she no sooner dis- 
covered how small a bluff was necessary for suc- 
cess than she easily outdid me in the ingenuity and 
finesse of her social strategy. It seemed to be in- 
stinctive with her. She was always revising her 
calling lists and cutting out people who were no 
longer socially useful; and having got what she 
could out of a new acquaintance, she would forget 
her as completely as if she had never made her the 
confidante of her inmost thoughts about other and 
less socially desirable people. 

252 



MY MORALS 

It seems a bit cold-blooded — this criticism of 
one's wife; but I know that, however much of a 
sycophant I may have been in my younger days, 
my wife has outdone me since then. Pres- 
ently we were both in the swim, swept off our 
feet by the current and carried down the river of 
success, willy-nilly, toward its mouth — to a safe 
haven, I wonder, or the deluge of a devouring 
cataract? 

The methods I adopted are those in general use, 
either consciously or unconsciously, among people 
striving for success in business, politics or society 
in New York. It is a struggle for existence, pre- 
cisely like that which goes on in the animal world. 
Only those who have strength or cunning survive 
to achieve success. Might makes right to an ex- 
tent little dreamed of by most of us. Nobody 
dares to censure or even mildly criticize one who 
has influence enough to do him harm. We are in- 
terested only in safeguarding or adding to the pos- 
sessions we have already secured. We are wise 
enough to "play safe." To antagonize one who 

253 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

might assist in depriving us of some of them is 
contrary to the laws of Nature. 

Our thoughts are for ourselves and our children 
alone. The devil take everybody else! We are 
safe, warm and comfortable ourselves; we exist 
without actual labor; and we desire our offspring 
to enjoy the same ease and safety. The rest of 
mankind is nothing to us, except a few people it is 
worth our while to be kind to — ^personal servants 
and employees. We should not hesitate to break 
all ten of the Commandments rather than that we 
and our children should lose a few material com- 
forts. Anything, save that we should have really 
to work for a living ! 

There are essentially two sorts of work: first — - 
genuine labor, which requires all a man's concen- 
trated physical or mental effort ; and second — that 
work which takes the laborer to his office at ten 
o'clock and, after an easy-going administrative 
morning, sets him at liberty at three or four. 

The officer of an uptown trust company or bank 
is apt to belong to the latter class. Or perhaps 
one is in real estate and does business at the dinner 

254 



MY MORALS 

tables of his friends. He makes love and money 
at the same time. His salary and commissions 
correspond somewhat to the unearned increment on 
the freeholds in which he deals. These are minor 
illustrations, but a majority of the administrative 
positions in our big corporations carry salaries out 
of all proportion to the services rendered. 

These are the places my friends are all looking 
for — for themselves or their children. The small 
stockholder would not vote the president of his 
company a salary of one hundred thousand dollars 
a year, or the vice-president fifty thousand dollars; 
but the rich man who controls the stock is willing 
to give his brother or his nephew a soft snap. 
From what I know of corporate enterprise in these 
United States, God save the minority stockholder ! 
But we and our brothers and sons and nephews 
must live — on Easy Street. We must be able to 
give expensive dinners and go to the theater and 
opera, and take our families to Europe — and we 
can't do it without money. 

We must be able to keep up our end without 
working too hard, to be safe and warm, well fed 

255 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

and smartly turned out, and able to call in a 
specialist and a couple of trained nurses if one of 
the children falls ill; we want thirty-iive feet of 
southerly exposure instead of seventeen, menserv- 
ants instead of maidservants, and a new motor 
every two years. 

We do not object to working — -that is to say, we 
pride ourselves on having a job. We like to be 
moderately busy. We would not have enough to 
amuse us all day if we did not go to the office in 
the morning; but what we do is not work! It is 
occupation perhaps— but there is no labor about it, 
either of mind or body. It is a sinecure — a 
"cinch." We could stay at home and most of us 
would not be missed. It is not the seventy-five- 
hundred-dollar-a-year vice-president but the eight- 
hundred-and-iifty-dollar clerk for want of whom 
the machine would stop if he were sick. Our 
labor is a kind of masculine light housework. 

We probably have private incomes, thanks 
to ouf fathers or great uncles — not large enough to 
enable us to cut much of a dash, to be sure, but suf- 
ficient to give us confidence — and the proceeds of 

256 



MY MORALS 

our daily toil, such as it is, goes toward the pur- 
chase of luxuries merely. Because we are in busi- 
ness we are able to give bigger and more elegant 
dinner parties, go to Palm Beach in February, and 
keep saddle-horses ; but we should be perfectly se- 
cure without working at all. 

Hence we have a sense of independence about 
it. We feel as if it were rather a favor on 
our part to be willing to go into an office ; and we 
expect to be paid vastly more proportionately than 
the fellow who needs the place in order to live ; so 
we cut him out of it at a salary three times what he 
would have been paid had he got the job, while he 
keeps on grinding at the books as a subordinate. 
We come down late and go home early, drop in at 
the club and go out to dinner, take in the opera, 
wear furs, ride in automobiles, and generally boss 
the show — for the sole reason that we belong to 
the crowd who have the money. Very likely if we 
had not been born with it we should die from mal- 
nutrition, or go to Ward's Island suffering from 
some variety of melancholia brought on by worry 
over our inability to make a living. 

257 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

I read the other day the true story of a little 
East Side tailor who could not earn enough to sup- 
port himself and his wife. He became half-crazed 
from lack of food and together they resolved to 
commit suicide. Somehow he secured a small 22- 
caliber rook rifle and a couple of cartridges. The 
wife knelt down on the bed in her nightgown, with 
her face to the wall, and repeated a prayer while 
he shot her in the back. When he saw her sink to 
the floor dead he became so unnerved that, instead 
of turning the rifle on himself, he ran out into the 
street, with chattering teeth, calling for help. 

This tragedy was absolutely the result of eco- 
nomic conditions, for the man was a hardworking 
and intelligent fellow, who could not find employ- 
ment and who went off his head from lack of nour- 
ishment. 

Now "I put it to you," as they say in the Eng- 
lish law courts, how much of a personal sacrifice 
would you have made to prevent this tragedy? 
What would that little East Side Jewess' life have 
been worth to you? She is dead. Her soul may 
or may not be with God. As a suicide the Church 

258 



MY MORALS 

would say it must be in hell. Well, how much 
would you have done to preserve her life or keep 
her soul out of hell"? 

Frankly, would you have parted with five hun- 
dred dollars to save that woman's life*? Five 
hundred dollars? Let me tell you that you would 
not voluntarily have given up smoking cigars for 
one year to avoid that tragedy! Of course you 
would have if challenged to do so. If the fact 
that the killing could be avoided in some such 
way or at a certain price, and the discrepancy be- 
tween the cost and the value of the life were 
squarely brought to your particular attention, you 
might and probably would do something. How 
much is problematical. 

Let us do you the credit of saying that you 
would give five hundred dollars — and take it out 
of some other charity. But what if you were 
given another chance to save a life for fiye hun- 
dred dollars? All right; you will save that too. 
Now a third ! You hesitate. That will be spend- 
ing fifteen hundred dollars — a good deal. Still 
you decide to do it. Yet how embarrassing! 

259 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

You find an opportunity to save a fourth, a 
fifth — a hundred lives at the same price ! What 
are you going to do? 

We all of us have such a chance in one way or 
another. The answer is that, in spite of the ad- 
monition of Christ to sell our all and give to the 
poor, and others of His teachings as contained 
in the Sermon on the Mount, you probably, in 
order to save the lives of persons unknown to you, 
would not sacrifice a single substantial material 
comfort for one year; and that your impulse to 
save the lives of persons actually brought to your 
knowledge would diminish, fade away and die 
in direct proportion to the necessity involved 
of changing your present luxurious mode of 
life. 

Do you know any rich woman who would sacri- 
fice her automobile in order to send convalescents 
to the country ? She may be a very charitable per- 
son and in the habit of sending such people to 
places where they are likely to recover health; but, 
no matter how many she actually sends, there 
would always be eight or ten more who could share 

260 



MY MORALS 

in that blessed privilege if she gave up her motor 
and used the money for the purpose. Yet she 
does not do so and you do not do so; and, to be 
quite honest, you would think her a fool if she 
did. 

What an interesting thing it would be if we 
could see the mental processes of some one of our 
friends who, unaware of our knowledge of his 
thoughts, was confronted with the opportunity of 
saving a life or accomplishing a vast good at a 
great sacrifice of his worldly possessions ! 

Suppose, for instance, he could save his own 
child by spending fifty thousand dollars in doctors, 
hospitals and nurses. Of course he would do so 
without a moment's hesitation, even if that was his 
entire fortune. But suppose the child were a 
nephew? We see him waver a little. A cousin — 
there is a distinct pause. Shall he pauperize him- 
self just for a cousin'? How about a mere social 
acquaintance? Not much! He might in a mo- 
ment of excitement jump overboard to save some- 
body from drowning; but it would have to be a 
dear friend or close relative to induce him to go to 

261 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

the bank and draw out all the money he had in the 
world to save that same life. 

The cities are full of lives that can be saved 
simply by spending a little money; but we close 
our eyes and, with out pocket-books clasped 
tight in our hands, pass by on the other side. 
Why? Not because we do not wish to deprive 
ourselves of the necessaries of life or even of its 
solid comforts, but because we are not willing to 
surrender our amusements. We want to play 
and not to work. That is what we are doing, 
what we intend to keep on doing, and what we 
plan to have our children do after us. 

Brotherly love? How can there be such a 
thing when there is a single sick baby dying for 
lack of nutrition — a single convalescent suffocat- 
ing for want of country air — a single family with- 
out fire or blankets ? Suggest to your wife that she 
give up a dinner gown and use the money to send 
a tubercular office boy to the Adirondacks — and 
listen to her excuses ! Is there not some charitable 
organization that does such things? Has not his 
family the money? How do you know he really 

262 



MY MORALS 

has consumption? Is he a good boy? And 
finally: "Well, one can't send every sick boy to 
the country; if one did there would be no money 
left to bring up one's own children." She hesi- 
tates — and the boy dies perhaps ! So long as we 
do not see them dying, we do not really care how 
many people die. 

Our altruism, such as it is, has nothing abstract 
about it. The successful man does not bother 
himself about things he cannot see. Do not talk 
about foreign missions to Jiim, Try his less suc- 
cessful brother — the man who is not successful 
because you can talk over with him foreign mis- 
sions or even more idealistic matters; who is a 
failure because he will make sacrifices for a prin- 
ciple. 

It is all a part of our materialism. Real sym- 
pathy costs too much money; so we try not to see 
the miserable creatures who might be restored to 
health for a couple of hundred dollars. A couple 
of hundred dollars? Why, you could take your 
wife to the theater forty times — once a week dur- 
ing the entire season — for that sum! 

263 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

Poor people make sacrifices; rich ones do not. 
There is very little real charity among successful 
people. A man who wasted his time helping 
others would never get on himself. 

It will, of course, be said in reply that the world 
is full of charitable institutions supported entirely 
by the prosperous and successful. That is quite 
true; but it must be remembered that they are 
small proof in themselves of the amount of real 
self-sacrifice and genuine charity existing among 
us. 

Philanthropy is largely the occupation of other- 
wise ineffective people, or persons who have noth- 
ing else to do, or of retired capitalists who like the 
notoriety and laudation they can get in no other 
way. But, even with philanthropy to amuse him, 
an idle multimillionaire in these United States 
has a pretty hard time of it. He is generally too 
old to enjoy society and is not qualified to make 
himself a particularly agreeable companion, even 
if his manners would pass muster at Newport. 
Politics is too strenuous. Desirable diplomatic 

264 



MY MORALS 

posts are few and the choicer ones still require 
some dignity or educational qualification in the 
holders. There is almost nothing left but to 
haunt the picture sales or buy a city block and 
order the construction of a French chateau in the 
middle of it. 

I know one of these men intimately; in fact I 
am his attorney and helped him make a part of his 
money. At sixty-four he retired — that is, he 
ceased endeavoring to increase his fortune by 
putting up the price of foodstuffs and other com- 
modities, or by driving competitors out of busi- 
ness. Since then he has been utterly wretched. 
He would like to be in society and dispense a lav- 
ish hospitality, but he cannot speak the language 
of the drawing room. His opera box stands stark 
and empty. His house, filled with priceless treas- 
ures fit for the Metropolitan Museum, is closed 
nine months in the year. 

His own wants are few. His wife is a plain 
woman, who used to do her own cooking and, in 
her heart, would like to do it still. He knows 
nothing of the esthetic side of life and is too old 

265 



THE '^GOLDFISH" 

to learn. Once a month, in the season, we dine 
at his house, with a mixed company, in a desert 
of dining room at a vast table loaded with masses 
of gold plate. The peaches are from South 
Africa; the strawberries from the Riviera. His 
chef ransacks the markets for pheasants, snipe, 
woodcock, Egyptian quail and canvasbacks. 
And at enormous distances from each other — so 
that the table may be decently full — sit, with their 
wives, his family doctor, his clergyman, his broker, 
his secretary, his lawyer, and a few of the more 
presentable relatives — a merry party! And that 
is what he has striven, fought and lied for for fifty 
years. 

Often he has told me of the early days, when 
he worked from seven until six, and then studied 
in night school until eleven ; and of the later ones 
when he and his wife lived, like ourselves, in a 
Fourteenth Street lodging house and saved up to 
go to the theater once a month. As a young man 
he swore he would have a million before he died. 
Sunday afternoons he would go up to the Vander- 
bilt house on Fifth Avenue and, shaking his fist 

266 



MY MORALS 

before the ornamental iron railing, whisper sav- 
agely that he would own just such a house himself 
some day. When he got his million he was going 
to retire. But he got his million at the age of 
forty-five, and it looked too small and mean; he 
would have ten — then he would stop I 

By fifty-five he had his ten millions. It was 
comparatively easy, I believe, for him to get it. 
But still he was not satisfied. Now he has twenty. 
But apart from his millions, his house and his 
pictures, which are bought for him by an agent 
on a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, he has 
nothing I I dine with him out of charity. 

Well, recently Johnson has gone into charity 
himself. I am told he has given away two mil- 
lions! That is an exact tenth of his fortune. 
He is a religious man — in this respect he has out- 
done most of his brother millionaires. However, 
he still has an income of over a million a year — 
enough to satisfy most of his modest needs. Yet 
the frugality of a lifetime is hard to overcome, 
and I have seen Johnson walk home — seven blocks 
— in the rain from his club rather than take a cab, 

267 



THE 'GOLDFISH" 

when the same evening he was giving his dinner 
guests peaches that cost — in December — two dol- 
lars and seventy-five cents apiece. 

The question is: How far have Johnson's two 
millions made him a charitable man? I confess 
that, so far as I can see, giving them up did not 
cost him the slightest inconvenience. He merely 
bought a few hundred dollars' worth of reputa- 
tion — as a charitable millionaire — at a cost of two 
thousand thousand dollars. It was — commer- 
cially — a miserable bargain. Only a compara- 
tively few people of the five million inhabitants 
of the city of New York ever heard of Johnson 
or his hospital. Now that it has been built, he is 
no longer interested. I do not believe he actually 
got as much satisfaction out of his two-million-dol- 
lar investment as he would get out of an evening 
at the Hippodrome ; but who can say that he is not 
charitable? 

I lay stress on this matter of charity because 
essentially the charitable man is the good man. 
And by good we mean one who is of value to others 

268 



MY MORALS 

as contrasted with one who is working, as most of 
us are, only for his own pocket all the time. He is 
the man who is such an egoist that he looks on him- 
self as a part of the whole world and a brother 
to the rest of mankind. He has really got an 
exaggerated ego and everybody else profits by it 
in consequence. 

He believes in abstract principles of virtue and 
would die for them; he recognizes duties and will 
struggle along, until he is a worn-out, penniless 
old man, to perform them. He goes out search- 
ing for those who need help and takes a chance on 
their not being deserving. Many a poor chap 
has died miserably because some rich man has 
judged that he was not deserving of help. I for- 
get what Lazarus did about the thirsty gentleman 
in Hades — ^probably he did not regard him as de- 
serving either. 

With most of us a charitable impulse is like the 
wave made by a stone thrown into a pool — it gets 
fainter and fainter the farther it has to go. Gen- 
erally it does not go the length of a city block. 
It is not enough that there is a starving cripple 

269 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

across the way — he must be on your own doorstep 
to rouse any interest. When we invest any of our 
money in charity we want twenty per cent inter- 
est, and we want it quarterly. We also wish to 
have a list of the stockholders made public. A 
man who habitually smokes two thirty-cent cigars 
after dinner will drop a quarter into the plate on 
Sunday and think he is a good Samaritan. 

The truth of the matter is that whatever in- 
stinct leads us to contribute toward the alleviation 
of the obvious miseries of the poor should compel 
us to go further and prevent those miseries — or as 
many of them as we can — from ever arising at all. 

So far as I am concerned, the division of good- 
ness into seven or more specific virtues is purely 
arbitrary. Virtue is generic. A man is either 
generous or mean — unselfish or selfish. The un- 
selfish man is the one who is willing to inconven- 
ience or embarrass himself, or to deprive himself 
of some pleasure or profit for the benefit of others, 
either now or hereafter. 

By the same token, now that I have given 
thought to the matter, I confess that I am a selfish 

270 



MY MORALS 

man— at bottom. Whatever generosity I possess 
is surface generosity. It would not stand the acid 
test of self-interest for a moment. I am generous 
where it is worth my while — that is all ; but, like 
everybody else in my class, I have no generosity 
so far as my social and business life is concerned. 
I am willing to inconvenience myself somewhat in 
my intimate relations with my family or friends, 
because they are really a part of me — and, any- 
way, not to do so would result, one way or another, 
in even greater inconvenience to me. 

Once outside my own house, however, I am 
out for myself and nobody else, however much I 
may protest that I have all the civic virtues and 
deceive the public into thinking I have. What 
would become of me if I did not look out for my 
own interests in the same way my associates look 
out for theirs'? I should be lost in the shuffle. 
The Christian virtues may be proclaimed from 
every pulpit and the Banner of the Cross fly from 
every housetop; but in business it is the law of 
evolution and not the Sermon on the Mount that 
controls. 

271 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

The rules of the big game are the same as those 
of the Roman amphitheater. There is not even a 
pretense that the same code of morals can obtain 
among corporations and nations as among private 
individuals. Then why blame the individuals^ 
It is just a question of dog eat dog. We are all 
after the bone. 

No corporation would shorten the working day 
except by reason of self-interest or legal compul- 
sion. No business man would attack an abuse 
that would take money out of his own pocket. 
And no one of us, except out of revenge or pique, 
would publicly criticize or condemn a man influ- 
ential enough to do us harm. The political Saint 
George usually hopes to jump from the back of 
the dead dragon of municipal corruption into the 
governor's chair. 

We have two standards of conduct — the osten- 
sible and the actual. The first is a convention — 
largely literary. It is essentially merely a matter 
of manners — to lubricate the wheels of life. The 
genuine sphere of its influence extends only to 
those with whom we have actual contact; so that 

272 



MY MORALS 

a breach of it would be embarrassing to us. 
Within this qualified circle we do business as 
''Christians & Company, Limited." Outside this 
circle we make a bluff at idealistic standards, but 
are guided only by the dictates of self-interest, 
judged almost entirely by pecuniary tests. 

I admit, however, that, though I usually act 
from selfish motives, I would prefer to act gen- 
erously if I could do so without financial loss. 
That is about the extent of my altruism, though I 
concede an omnipresent consciousness of what is 
abstractly right and what is wrong. Occasion- 
ally, but very rarely, I even blindly follow this 
instinct irrespective of consequences. 

There have been times when I have been genu- 
inely self-sacrificing. Indeed I should unhesitat- 
ingly die for my son, my daughters — and probably 
for my wife. I have frequently suffered financial 
loss rather than commit perjury or violate my 
sense of what is right. I have called this sense an 
instinct, but I do not pretend to know what 
it is. Neither can I explain its origin. If it is 
anything it is probably utilitarian; but it does 

273 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

not go very far. I have manners rather than 
morals. 

Fundamentally I am honest, because to be hon- 
est is one of the rules of the game I play. If I 
were caught cheating I should not be allowed 
to participate. Honestly from this point of 
view is so obviously the best policy that I have 
never yet met a big man in business who was 
crooked. Mind you, they were most of them 
pirates — frankly flying the black flag and each 
trying to scuttle the other's ships; but their word 
was as good as their bond and they played the 
game squarely, according to the rules. Men of 
my class would no more stoop to petty dishones- 
ties than they would wear soiled linen. The word 
lie is not in their mutual language. They may 
lie to the outside public — I do not deny that they 
do — but they do not lie to each other. 

There has got to be some basis on which they 
can do business with one another — some stability. 
The spoils must be divided evenly. Good 
morals, like good manners, are a necessity in our 
social relations. They are the uncodified rules of 

274 



MY MORALS 

conduct among gentlemen. Being uncodified, 
they are exceedingly vague ; and the court of Pub- 
lic Opinion that administers them is apt to be not 
altogether impartial. It is a "respecter of per- 
sons." 

One man can get away with things that another 
man will hang for. A Jean Valjean will steal a 
banana and go to the Island, while some rich fel- 
low will put a bank in his pocket and everybody 
will treat it as a joke. A popular man may get 
drunk and not be criticized for it; but the sour 
chap who does the same thing is flung out of the 
club. There is little justice in the arbitrary de- 
cisions of society at large. 

In a word we exact a degree of morality from 
our fellowmen precisely in proportion to its ap- 
parent importance to ourselves. It is a purely 
practical and even a rather shortsighted matter 
with us. Our friend's private conduct, so far as 
it does not concern us, is an affair of small mo- 
ment. He can be as much of a roue as he chooses, 
so long as he respects our wives and daughters. 
He can put through a gigantic commercial robbery 

27S 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

and we will acclaim his nerve and audacity, pro- 
vided he is on the level with ourselves. That is 
the reason why cheating one's club members at 
cards is regarded as worse than stealing the funds 
belonging to widows and orphans. 

So long as a man conducts himself agreeably in 
his daily intercourse with his fellows they are not 
going to put themselves out very greatly to punish 
him for wrongdoing that does not touch their own 
bank accounts or which merely violates their pri- 
vate ethical standards. Society is crowded with 
people who have been guilty of one detestable act, 
have got thereby on Easy Street and are living 
happily ever after. 

I meet constantly fifteen or twenty men who 
have deliberately married women for their money 
— of course without telling them so. According 
to our professed principles this is — to say the least 
— obtaining money under false pretenses — a crime 
under the statutes. These men are now million- 
aires. They are crooks and swindlers of the 
meanest sort. Had they not married in this fash- 
ion they could not have earned fifteen hundred 

276 



MY MORALS 

dollars a year; but everybody goes to their houses 
and eats their dinners. 

There are others, equally numerous, who ac- 
quired fortunes by blackmailing corporations or 
by some deal that at the time of its accomplish- 
ment was known to be crooked. To-day they are^j 
received on the same terms as men who have been ( 
honest all their lives. Society is not particular as ' 
to the origin of its food supply. Though we might \ 
refuse to steal money ourselves we are not unwill- 
ing to let the thief spend it on us. We are too 
busy and too selfish to bother about trying to pun- 
ish those who deserve punishment. 

On the contrary we are likely to discover 
surprising virtues in the most unpromising people. 
There are always extenuating circumstances. In- 
deed, in those rare instances where, in the case of 
a rich man, the social chickens come home to roost, 
the reason his fault is not overlooked is usually 
so arbitrary or fortuitous that it almost seems an 
injustice that he should suffer when so many others 
go scot-free for their misdeeds. 

Society has no conscience, and whatever it 
277 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

has as a substitute is usually stimulated only by 
motives of personal vengeance. It is easier to 
gloss over an offense than to make ourselves dis- 
agreeable and perhaps unpopular. 

We have not even the public spirit to have a 
thief arrested and appear against him in court if 
he has taken from us only a small amount of 
money. It is too much trouble. Only when our 
pride is hurt do we call loudly on justice and 
honor. 

Even revenge is out of fashion. It requires 
too much effort. Few of us have enough principle 
to make ourselves uncomfortable in attempting 
to show disapproval toward wrongdoers. Were 
this not so, the wicked would not be still flourish- 
ing like green bay trees. So long as one steals 
enough he can easily buy our forgiveness. Hon- 
esty is not the best policy — except in trifles. 



278 



CHAPTER VI 

MY FUTURE 

WHEN I began to pen these wandering con- 
fessions — or whatever they may properly 
be called — it was with the rather hazy purpose of 
endeavoring to ascertain why it was that I, uni- 
versally conceded to be a successful man, was not 
happy. As I reread what I have written I realize 
that, instead of being a successful man in any way, 
I am an abject failure. 

The preceding pages need no comment. The 
facts speak for themselves. I had everything in 
my favor at the start. I had youth, health, natu- 
ral ability, a good wife, friends and opportunity; 
but I blindly accepted the standards of the men 
I saw about me and devoted my energies to the 
achievement of the single object that was theirs — 
the getting of money. 

Thirty years have gone by. I have been a 
279 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

leader in the race and I have secured a prize. 
But at what cost? I am old — a bundle of unde- 
sirable habits; my health is impaired; my wife 
has become a frivolous and extravagant woman; 
I have no real friends: my children are strangers 
to me, and I have no home. I have no interest 
in my family, my social acquaintances, or in the 
affairs of the city or nation. I take no sincere 
pleasure in art or books or outdoor life. The only 
genuine satisfaction that is mine is in„ the first 
fifteen-minutes' flush after my afternoon cocktail 
and the preliminary course or two of my dinner. 
I have nothing to look forward to. No mat- 
ter how much money I make, there is no use to 
which I can put it that will increase my happiness. 

From a material standpoint I have achieved ev- 
erything I can possibly desire. No king or emperor 
ever approximated the actual luxury of my daily 
life. No one ever accomplished more apparent 
work with less actual personal effort. I am a mas- 
ter at the exploitation of intellectual labor. 

I have motors, saddle-horses, and a beautiful 
summer cottage at a cool and fashionable resort. 

280 



MY FUTURE 

I travel abroad when the spirit moves me ; I enter- 
tain lavishly and am entertained in return; I 
smoke the costliest cigars; I have a reputation at 
the bar, and I have an established income large 
enough to sustain at least sixty intelligent people 
and their families in moderate comfort. This 
must be true, for on the one hundred and 
twenty-five dollars a month I pay my chauffeur 
he supports a wife and two children, sends them 
to school and on a three-months' vacation into 
the country during the summer. And, instead of 
all these things giving me any satisfaction, I am 
miserable and discontented. 

The fact that I now realize the selfishness of 
my life led me to-day to resolve to do something 
for others — and this resolve had an unexpected 
and surprising consequence. 

Heretofore I had been engaged in an introspec- 
tive study of my own attitude toward my fellows. 
I had not sought the evidence of outside parties. 
What has just occurred has opened my eyes to 
the fact that others have not been nearly so blind 
as I have been myself. 

281 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

James Hastings, my private secretary, is a man 
of about forty-five years of age. He has been in 
my employ fifteen years. He is a fine type of 
man and deserves the greatest credit for what he 
has accomplished. Beginning life as an office boy 
at three dollars a week, he educated himself by 
attending school at night, learned stenography 
and typewriting, and has become one of the most 
expert law stenographers in Wall Street. I be- 
lieve that, without being a lawyer, he knows al- 
most as much law as I do. 

Gradually I have raised his wages until he is 
now getting fifty dollars a week. In addition to 
this he does nightwork at the Bar Association at 
double rates, acts as stenographer at legal refer- 
ences, and does, I understand, some trifling liter- 
ary work besides. I suppose he earns from thirty- 
five hundred to five thousand dollars a year. 
About thirteen years ago he married one of the 
woman stenographers in the office — a nice girl 
she was too — and now they have a couple of chil- 
dren. He lives somewhere in the country and 
spends an unconscionable txnie on the train 



MY FUTURE 

daily, yet he is always on hand at an early 
hour. 

What happened to-day was this : A peculiarly 
careful piece of work had been done in the way of 
looking up a point of corporation law, and I in- 
quired who was responsible for briefing it. Hast- 
tings smiled and said he had done so. As I 
looked at him it suddenly dawned on me that 
this man might make real money if he studied 
for the bar and started in practice for himself. 
He had brains and an enormous capacity for work. 
I should dislike losing so capable a secretary, but 
it would be doing him a good turn to let him know 
what I thought; and it was time that I did 
somebody a good turn from an unselfish mo- 
tive. 

"Hastings," I said, "you're too good to be 
merely a stenographer. Why don't you study 
law and make some money *? I '11 keep you here 
in my oflSce, throw things in your way and push 
you along. What do you say?" 

He flushed with gratification, but, after a mo- 
ment's respectful hesitation, shook his head. 

283 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"Thank you very much, sir," he replied, "but 
I would n't care to do it. I really would n't!" 

Though I am fond of the man, his obstinacy 
nettled me. 

"Look here!" I cried. "I'm offering you an 
unusual chance. You had better think twice be- 
fore you decline such an opportunity to make 
something of yourself. If you don't take it you '11 
probably remain what you are as long as you live. 
Seize it and you may do as well as I have." 

Hastings smiled faintly. 

"I 'm very sorry, sir," he repeated. "I 'm 
grateful to you for your interest; but — I hope 
you '11 excuse me — I would n't change places with 
you for a million dollars ! No — not for ten mil- 
lion!" 

He blurted out the last two sentences like a 
schoolboy, standing and twisting his notebook be- 
tween his fingers. 

There was something in his tone that dashed my 
spirits like a bucket of cold water. He had not 
meant to be impertinent. He was the most truth- 
ful man alive. What did he mean? Not willing 

284 



MY FUTURE 

to change places with me! It was my turn to 
flush. 

"Oh, very well!" I answered in as indifferent 
a manner as I could assume. "It 's up to you. I 
merely meant to do you a good turn. We '11 
think no more about it." 

I continued to think about it, however. Would 
not change places with me — a fifty-dollar-a-week 
clerk ! 

Hastings' pointblank refusal of my good offices, 
coming as it did hard on the heels of my own 
realization of failure, left me sick at heart. 
What sort of an opinion could this honest fellow, 
my mere employee — dependent on my favor for 
his very bread- — ^have of me, his master^ Clearly 
not a very high one ! I was stung to the quick — 
chagrined; ashamed. 

It was Saturday morning. The week's work 
was practically over. All of my clients were out 
of town — golfing, motoring, or playing poker at 
Cedarhurst. There was nothing for me to do at 
the office but to indorse half a dozen checks for 

285 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

deposit. I lit a cigar and looked out the window 
of my cave down on the hurrying throng below. 
A resolute, never-pausing stream of men plodded 
in each direction. Now and then others dashed 
out of the doors of marble buildings and joined 
the crowd. 

On the river ferryboats were darting here and 
there from shore to shore. There was a bedlam 
of whistles, the thunder of steam winches, the 
clang of surface cars, the rattle of typewriters. 
To what end? Down at the curb my motor car 
was in waiting. I picked up my hat and passed 
into the outer office. 

"By the way, Hastings," I said casually as I 
went by his desk, "where are you living now?" 

He looked up smilingly. 

"Pleasantdale — up Kensico way," he answered. 

I shifted my feet and pulled once or twice on 
my cigar. I had taken a strange resolve. 

"Er — going to be in this afternoon?" I asked. 
"I'm off for a run and I might drop in for a cup 
of tea about five o'clock." 

"Oh, will you, sir!" he exclaimed with pleas- 
286 



MY FUTURE 

ure. "We shall be delighted. Mine is the house 
at the crossroads — with the red roof." 

"Well," said I, "you may see me — but don't 
keep your tea waiting." 

As I shot uptown in my car I had almost the 
feeling of a coming adventure. Hastings was a 
good sort! I respected him for his bluntness of 
speech. At the cigar counter in the club I re- 
plenished my case. 

Then I went into the reception room, where I 
found a bunch of acquaintances sitting round the 
window. They hailed me boisterously. What 
would I have to drink *? I ordered a "Hannah 
Elias" and sank into a chair. One of them was 
telling about the newest scandal in the divorce 
line: The president of one of our largest trust 
companies had been discovered to have been lead- 
ing a double life — running an apartment on the 
West Side for a haggard and ^passee showgirl. 

"You just tell me — I'd like to know — why a 
fellow like that makes such a damned fool of him- 
self! Salary of fifty thousand dollars a year! 
Big house; high-class wife and family; yacht — 

287 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

everything anybody wants. Not a drinking man 
either. It defeats me!" he said. 

None of the group seemed able to suggest an an- 
swer. I had just tossed off my "Hannah Elias." 

"I think I know," I hazarded meditatively. 
They turned with one accord and stared at me. 
"There was nothing else for him to do," I con- 
tinued, "except to blow his brains out." 

The raconteur grunted. 

"I don't just know the meaning of that!" he re- 
marked. "I thought he was a friend of yours !" 

"Oh, I like him well enough," I answered, get- 
ting up. "Thanks for the drink. I've got to 
be getting home. My wife is giving a little 
luncheon to thirty valuable members of soci- 
ety." 

I was delayed on Fifth Avenue and when the 
butler opened the front door the luncheon party 
was already seated at the table. A confused din 
emanated from behind the portieres of the dining 
room, punctuated by shouts of female laughter. 
The idea of going in and overloading my stomach 
for an hour, while strenuously attempting to pro- 

288 



MY FUTURE 

duce light conversation, sickened me. I shook my 
head. 

"Just tell your mistress that I 've been suddenly 
called away on business," I directed the butler 
and climbed back into my motor. 

"Up the river!" I said to my chauffeur. 

We spun up the Riverside Drive, past rows of 
rococo apartment houses, along the Lafayette 
Boulevard and through Yonkers. It was a glori- 
ous autumn day. The Palisades shone red and 
yellow with turning foliage. There was a fresh 
breeze down the river and a thousand whitecaps 
gleamed in the sunlight. Overhead great white 
clouds moved majestically athwart the blue. But 
I took no pleasure in it all. I was suffering from 
an acute mental and physical depression. Like 
Hamlet I had lost all my mirth — whatever I ever 
had — and the clouds seemed but a "pestilent con- 
gregation of vapors." I sat in a sort of trance as 
I was whirled farther and farther away from the 
city. 

At last I noticed that my silver motor clock was 
pointing to half -past two, and I realized that 

289 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

neither the chauffeur nor myself had had anything 
to eat since breakfast. We were entering a tiny 
village. Just beyond the main square a sign 
swinging above the sidewalk invited wayfarers to 
a " quick lunch." I pressed the button and we 
pulled to the gravel walk. 

"Lunch I" I said, and opened the wire-netted 
door. Inside there were half a dozen oilcloth- 
covered tables and a red-cheeked young woman 
was sewing in a corner. 

"What have you got^" I asked, inspecting the 
layout. 

"Tea, coffee, milk — eggs any style you want," 
she answered cheerily. Then she laughed in a 
good-natured way. "There's a real hotel at 
Poughkeepsie — five miles along," she added. 

"I don't want a real hotel," I replied. "What 
are you laughing at^" 

Then I realized that I must look rather civilized 
for a motorist. 

"You don't look as you 'd care for eggs," she 
said. 

"That 's where you 're wrong," I retorted. "I 
290 



MY FUTURE 

want three of the biggest, yellowest, roundest 
poached eggs your fattest hen ever laid — and a 
schooner of milk." 

The girl vanished into the back of the shop and 
presently I could smell toast. I discovered I was 
extremely hungry. In about eight minutes she 
came back with a tray on which was a large glass 
of creamy milk and the triple eggs for which I 
had prayed. They were spherical, white and 
wabbly. 

"You 're a prize poacher," I remarked, my 
spirits reviving. 

She smiled appreciatively. 

"Going far?" she inquired, sitting down quite 
at ease at one of the neighboring tables. 

I looked pensively at her pleasant face across 
the eggs. 

"That's a question," I answered. "I can't 
make out whether I 've been moving on or just 
going round and round in a circle." 

She looked puzzled for an instant. Then she 
said shrewdly : 

"Perhaps you 've really been going back" 
291 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"Perhaps," I admitted. 

I have never tasted anything quite so good as 
those eggs and that milk. From where I sat I 
could look far up the Hudson ; the wind from the 
river swayed the red maples round the door of the 
quick lunch; and from the kitchen came the 
homely smells of my lost youth. I had a fleeting 
vision of the party at my house, now playing 
bridge for ten cents a point; and my soul lifted 
its head for the first time in weeks. 

"How far is it to Pleas an tdale^" 

"A long way," answered the girl; "but you can 
make a connection by trolley that will get you 
there in about two hours." 

"Suits me!" I said and stepped to the 
door. "You can go, James; I'll get myself 
home." 

He cast on me a scandalized look. 

"Very good, sir I" he answered and touched his 
cap. 

He must have thought me either a raving luna- 
tic or an unabashed adventurer. A moment more 
and the car disappeared in the direction of the city. 

292 



MY FUTURE 

I was free I The girl made no attempt to conceal 
her amusement. 

Behind the door was a gray felt hat. I took it 
down and looked at the size. It was within a 
quarter of my own. 

"Look here," I suggested, holding out a five- 
dollar bill, "I want a Wishing Cap. Let me take 
this, will you'?" 

"The house is yours I" she laughed. 

Over on the candy counter was a tray of corn- 
cob pipes. I helped myself to one, to a package 
of tobacco and a box of matches. I hung my 
derby on the vacant peg behind the door. Then I 
turned to my hostess. 

"You 're a good girl," I said. "Good luck to 
you." 

For a moment something softer came into her 
eyes. 

"And good luck to you, sir!" she replied. As 
I passed down the steps she threw after me : "I 
hope you'll find — what you're looking for!" 

In my old felt hat and smoking my corncob I 
293 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

trudged along the road in the mellow sunlight, 
almost happy. By and by I reached the trolley 
line ; and for five cents, in company with a hetero- 
geneous lot of country folks, Italian laborers and 
others, was transported an absurdly long distance 
across the state of New York to a wayside sta- 
tion. 

There I sat on a truck on the platform and 
chatted with a husky, broad-shouldered youth, 
who said he was the "baggage smasher," until 
finally a little smoky train appeared and bore me 
southward. It was the best holiday I had had in 
years — and I was sorry when we pulled into 
Pleasantdale and I took to my legs again. 

In the fading afternoon light it indeed seemed a 
pleasant, restful place. Comfortable cottages, 
each in its own yard, stood in neighborly rows 
along the shaded street. Small boys were playing 
football in a field adjoining a schoolhouse. 

Presently the buildings became more scattered 
and I found myself following a real country road, 
though still less than half a mile from the station. 
Ahead it divided and in the resulting triangle, 

294 



MY FUTURE 

behind a well-clipped hedge, stood a pretty cot- 
tage with a red roof — Hastings', I was sure. 

I tossed away my pipe and opened the gate. 
A rather pretty woman of about thirty-five was 
reading in a red hammock; there were half a dozen 
straw easy chairs and near by a teatable, with the 
kettle steaming. Mrs. Hastings looked up at my 
step on the gravel path and smiled a welcome. 

"Jim has been playing golf over at the club — 
he did n't expect you until five," she said, coming 
to meet me. 

"I don't care whether he comes or not," I re- 
turned gallantly. "I want to see you. Besides, 
I 'm as hungry as a bear." She raised her eye- 
brows. "I had only an egg or so and a glass of 
milk for luncheon, and I have walked — ^miles I" 

"Oh !" she exclaimed. I could see she had had 
quite a different idea of her erstwhile employer; 
but my statement seemed to put us on a more 
friendly footing from the start. 

"I love walking too," she hastened to say. 
"Isn't it wonderful to-day? We get weeks of 
such weather as this every autumn." She busied 

295 



THE 'GOLDFISH ' 

herself over the teacups and then, stepping inside 
the door for a moment, returned with a plate piled 
high with buttered toast, and another with sand- 
wiches of grape jelly. 

"Carmen is out," she remarked; "otherwise you 
should be served in greater style." 

"Carmen?" 

"Carmen is our maid, butler and valet," she ex- 
plained. "It 's such a relief to get her out of the 
way once in a while and have the house all to 
oneself. That 's one of the reasons I enjoy our 
two- weeks' camping trip so much every summer." 

"You like the woods'?" 

"Better than anything, I think — except just 
being at home here. And the children have the 
time of their lives — fishing and climbing trees, 
and watching for deer in the boguns." 

The gate clicked at that moment and Hastings, 
golf bag on shoulders, came up the path. He 
looked lean, brown, hard and happy. 

"Just like me to be late!" he apologized. "I 
had no idea it would take me so long to beat 
Colonel Bogey." 

296 



MY FUTURE 

"Your excuses are quite unnecessary. Mrs. 
Hastings and I have discovered that we are natu- 
ral affinities," said I. 

My stenographer, quite at ease, leaned his sticks 
in a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea and 
a couple of sandwiches, which in my opinion 
rivaled my eggs and milk of the early afternoon. 
My walk had made me comfortably tired; my 
lungs were distended with cool country air; my 
head was clear, and this domestic scene warmed 
the cockles of my heart. 

"How is the Chicopee & Shamrock reorganiza- 
tion coming on*?" asked Hastings, striving to be 
polite by suggesting a congenial subject for con- 
versation. 

"I don't know," I retorted. "I 've forgotten 
all about it until Monday morning. On the other 
hand, how are your children coming on?" 

"Sylvia is out gathering chestnuts," answered 
Mrs. Hastings, "and Tom is playing football. 
They '11 be home directly. I wonder if you 
would n't like Jim to show you round our 
place?' 

297 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"Just the thing," I answered, for I guessed she 
had household duties to perform. 

"Of course you '11 stay to supper^" she pressed 
me. 

I hesitated, though I knew I should stay, all 
the time. 

"Well — if it really won't put you out," I re- 
plied. "I suppose there are evening trains'?" 

"One every hour. We '11 get you home by ten 
o'clock." 

"I'll have to telephone," I said, remember- 
ing my wife's regular Saturday-night bridge 
party. 

"That's easily managed," said Hastings. 
"You can speak to your own house right from my 
library." 

Again I barefacedly excused myself to my but- 
ler on the ground of important business. As we 
strolled through the gateway we were met by a 
sturdy little boy with tousled hair. He had on 
an enormous gray sweater and was hugging a pig- 
skin. 

"We beat 'em !" he shouted, unabashed by my 
298 



MY FUTURE 

obviously friendly presence. "Eighteen to noth- 
ing I" 

"Tom is twelve," said Hastings with a shade 
of pride in his voice. "Yes, the schools here are 
good. I expect to have him ready for college in 
five years more." 

"What are you going to make of him?" I asked. 

"A civil engineer, I think," he answered. "You 
see, I 'm a crank on fresh air and building things 
—and he seems to be like me. This cooped-up 
city life is pretty narrowing, don't you think"?" 

"It's fierce!" I returned heartily, with more 
warmth than elegance. "Sometimes I wish I 
could chuck the whole business and go to farm- 
ing." 

"Why not?" he asked as we climbed a small rise 
behind the house. "Here 's my farm — fifteen 
acres. We raise most of our own truck." 

Below the hill a cornfield, now yellow with 
pumpkins, stretched to the farther road. Nearer 
the house was a kitchen garden, with an apple 
orchard beyond. A man in shirtsleeves was milk- 
ing a cow behind a tiny barn. 

299 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"I bought this place three years ago for thirty- 
nine hundred dollars," said my stenographer. 
"They say it is worth nearer six thousand now. 
Anyhow it is worth a hundred thousand to me I" 

A little girl, with bulging apron, appeared at 
the edge of the orchard and came running toward 
us. 

"What have you got there'?" called her father. 

"Oh, daddy! Such lovely chestnuts!" cried 
the child. "And there are millions more of 
them!" 

"We '11 roast 'em after supper," said her father. 
"Toddle along now and wash up." 

She put up a rosy, beaming face to be kissed 
and dashed away toward the house. I tried to re- 
member what either of my two girls had been like 
at her age, but for some strange reason I could not. 

Across the road the fertile countryside sloped 
away into a distant valley, hemmed in by dim 
blue hills, below which the sun had already sunk, 
leaving only a gilded edge behind. The air was 
filled with a soft, smoky haze. A church bell in 
the village struck six o'clock. 

300 



MY FUTURE 

''The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. 
The plowman homeward plods his weary way/' 

I murmured. 

"For 'plowman' read 'golfer,' " smiled my host. 
"By George, though — it is pretty good to be 
alive!" The air had turned crisp and we both 
instinctively took a couple of deep breaths. 
"Makes the city look like thirty cents I" he ejacu- 
lated. "Of course it is n't like New York or 
Southampton." 

"No, thank God ! It is n't I" I muttered as we 
wandered toward the house. 

"I hope you don't mind an early supper," apolo- 
gized Mrs. Hastings as we entered; "but Jim gets 
absolutely ravenous. You see, on weekdays his 
lunch is at best a movable feast." 

Our promptly served meal consisted of soup, 
scramibled eggs and bacon, broiled chops, fried 
potatoes, peas, salad, apple pie, cheese, grapes 
plucked fresh from the garden wall, and black 
coffee, distilled from a shining coffee machine. 
Mrs. Hastings brought the things hot from the 

301 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

kitchen and dished them herself. Tom and 
Sylvia, carefully spruced up, ate prodigiously and 
then helped clear away the dishes, while I pro- 
duced my cigar case. 

Then Hastings led me across the hall to a room 
about twelve feet square, the walls of which were 
lined with books, where a wood fire was already 
crackling cozily. Motioning me to an old leather 
armchair, he pulled up a wooden rocker before 
the mantel and, leaning over, laid a regiment of 
chestnuts before the blazing logs. 

I stretched out my legs and took a long pull on 
one of my Carona-Caronas. It all seemed too 
good to be true. Only six hours before in my 
marble entrance hall I had listened disgustedly 
to the cackle of my wife's luncheon party behind 
the tapestry of my own dining room. 

After all, how easy it was to be happy! Here 
was Hastings, jolly as a clam and living like a 
prince on — what? I wondered. 

"Hastings," I said, "do you mind telling me 
how much it costs you to live like this?" 

"Not at all," he replied — "though I never fig- 
302 



MY FUTURE 

ured it out exactly. Let 's see. Five per cent on 
the cost of the place — say, two hundred dollars. 
Repairs and insurance a hundred. That 's three 
hundred, is n't it? We pay the hired man thirty- 
iive dollars and Carmen eighteen dollars a month, 
and give 'em their board — about six hundred and 
fifty more. So far nine hundred and fifty. Our 
vegetables and milk cost us practically nothing — 
meat and groceries about seventy-five a month — 
nine hundred a year. 

"We have one horse ; but in good weather I use 
my bicycle to go to the station. We cut our own 
ice in the pond back of the orchard. The schools 
are free. I cut quite a lot of wood myself, but 
my coal comes high — ^must cost me at least a hun- 
dred and fifty a year. I don't have many doctors' 
bills, living out here; but the dentist hits us for 
about twenty-five dollars every six months — 
that's fifty more. My wife spends about three 
hundred and the children as much more. Of 
course that 's fairly liberal. One does n't need 
ballgowns in our village. 

"My own expenses are, railroad fare, lunches, 

303 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

tobacco — I smoke a pipe mostly — and clothes — 
probably about five hundred in all. We go on a 
big bat once a month and dine at a table-d'hote 
restaurant, and take in the opera or the play. 
That costs some — about ten dollars a clip — say, 
eighty for the season; and, of course, I blow the 
kids to a camping trip every summer, which sets 
me back a good hundred and fifty. How does 
that come out^" 

I had jotted the items down, as he went along, 
on the back of an envelope. 

"Thirty- three hundred and eighty dollars," I 
said, adding them up. 

"It seems a good deal," he commented, turning 
and gazing into the fire; "but I have usually man- 
aged to lay up about fifteen hundred every year — 
besides, of course, the little I give away." 

I sat stunned. Thirty-three hundred dollars! 
— I spent seventy-two thousand! — and the man 
lived as well as I did ! What did I have that he 
had not*? But Hastings was saying something, 
still with his back toward me. 

"I suppose you thought I must be an ungrateful 

304 



MY FUTURE 

dog not to jump at the offer you made me this 
morning," he remarked in an embarrassed manner. 
*'It 's worried me a lot all day. I 'm really tre- 
mendously gratified at your kindness. I could n't 
very well explain myself, and I don't know what 
possessed me to say what I did about my not being 
willing to exchange places with you. But, you 
see, I 'm over forty. That makes a heap of differ- 
ence. I 'm as good a stenographer as you can 
find, and so long as my health holds out I can 
be sure of at least fifty dollars a week, besides what 
I earn outside. 

'T 've never had any kink for the law. I don't 
think I 'd be a success at it; and frankly, saving 
your presence, I don't like it. A lot of it is easy 
money and a lot of it is money earned in the mean- 
est way there is — ^playing dirty tricks; putting in 
the wrong a fellow that 's really right ; aggravat- 
ing misunderstandings and profiting by the quar- 
rels people get into. You 're a highclass, honor- 
able man, and you don't see the things I see." I 
winced. If he only knew, I had seen a good 
deal! "But I go round among the other law 

305 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

offices, and I tell you it 's a demoralizing profes- 
sion. 

"It's all right to reorganize a railroad; but in 
general litigation it seems to me as if the lawyers 
spend most of their time trying to make the judge 
and jury believe the witnesses are all criminals. 
Everything a man says on the stand or has ever 
done in his life is made the subject of a false infer- 
ence — an innuendo. The law is n't constructive 
— it 's destructive; and that 's why I want my boy 
to be a civil engineer." 

He paused, abashed at his own heat. 

"Well," I interjected, "it's a harsh arraign- 
ment; but there 's a great deal of truth in what you 
say. Wouldn't you like to make big money*?" 

"Big money! I do make big money — for a 
man of my class," he replied with a gentle smile. 
"I would n't know what to do with much more. 
I 've got health and a comfortable home, the affec- 
tion of an honest woman and two fine children. 
I work hard, sleep like a log, and get a couple of 
sets of tennis or a round of golf on Saturdays and 
Sundays. I have the satisfaction of knowing I 

306 



MY FUTURE 

give you your money's worth for the salary you 
pay me. My kids have as good teachers as there 
are anywhere. We see plenty of people and I 
belong to a club or two. I bear a good reputation 
in the town and try to keep things going in the 
right direction. We have all the books and 
magazines we want to read. What's more, 
I don't worry about trying to be something I 'm 
not." 

"How do you mean?" I asked, feeling that his 
talk was money in my moral pocket. 

"Oh, I 've seen a heap of misery in New York 
due to just wanting to get ahead — I don't know 
where; fellows that are just crazy to make 'big 
money,' as you call it, in order to ride in motors 
and get into some sort of society. All the clerks, 
office boys and stenographers seem to want to be- 
come stockbrokers. Personally I don't see what 
there is in it for them. I don't figure out that my 
boy would be any happier with two million dol- 
lars than without. If he had it he would be 
worrying all the time for fear he was n't getting 
enough fun for his money. And as for my girl I 

307 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

want her to learn to do something! I want her 
to have the discipline that comes from knowing 
how to earn her own living. Of course that 's 
one of the greatest satisfactions there is in life 
anyway — doing some one thing as well as it can 
be done." 

"Would n't you like your daughter to marry ^" 
I demanded. 

"Certainly — if she can find a clean man who 
wants her. Why, it goes without saying, that is 
life's greatest happiness — that and having chil- 
dren." 

"Certainly !" I echoed with an inward qualm. 

"Suppose she does n't marry though? That 's 
the point. She does n't want to hang round a 
boarding house all her life when everybody is 
busy doing interesting things. I 've got a 
theory that the reason rich people — especially rich 
women — get bored is because they don't know any- 
thing about real life. Put one of 'em in a law 
office, hitting a typewriter at fifteen dollars a 
week, and in a month she 'd wake up to what was 
really going on— she 'd be alive T 

308 



MY FUTURE 

*' 'The world is so full of a number of things 
Vm sure we should all he as happy as kings 1* " 

said I. "What 's Sylvia going to do^" 

"Oh, she 's quite a clever little artist." He 
handed me some charming sketches in pencil that 
were lying on the table. "I think she may make 
an illustrator. Heaven knows we need 'em! 
I '11 give her a course at Pratt Institute and then 
at the Academy of Design ; and after that, if they 
think she is good enough, I '11 send her to Paris." 

"I wish I 'd done the same thing with my girls I" 
I sighed. "But the trouble is — the trouble is — 
You see, if I had they would n't have been doing 
what their friends were doing. They 'd have been 
'out of it.' " 

"No; they wouldn't like that, of course," 
agreed Hastings respectfully. "They would want 
to be 'in it.' " 

I looked at him quickly to see whether his re- 
mark had a double entendre. 

"I don't see very much of my daughters," I con- 
tinued. "They 've got away from me some- 
how." 

309 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

" That 's the tough part of it," he said thought- 
fully. "I suppose rich people are so busy with 
all the things they have to do that they have n't 
much time for fooling round with their children. 
I have a good time with mine though. They 're 
too young to get away anyhow. We read French 
history aloud every evening after supper. Sylvia 
is almost an expert on the Duke of Guise and the 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew." 

We smoked silently for some moments. Hast- 
ings' ideas interested me, but I felt that he could 
give me something more personal — of more value 
to myself. The fellow was really a philosopher 
in his quiet way. 

"After all, you have n't told me what you meant 
by saying you would n't change places with me," 
I said abruptly. "What did you mean by that*? 
I want to know." 

"I wish you would forget I ever said it, sir," 
he murmured. 

"No," I retorted, "I can't forget it. You 
need n't spare me. This talk is not e% cathedra — 
it 's just between ourselves. When you 've told 

310 



MY FUTURE 

me why, then I will forget it. This is man to 
man." 

"Well," he answered slowly, "it would take 
me a long time to put it in just the right way. 
There was nothing personal in what I said this 
morning. I was thinking about conditions in 
general — the whole thing. It can't go on I" 

"What can't go on?" 

"The terrible burden of money," he said. 

"Terrible burden of money I" I repeated. 
What did he mean? 

"The weight of it — that 's bowing people down 
and choking them up. It 's like a ball and chain. 
I meant I would n't change places with any man 
in the millionaire class — I could n't stand the com- 
plexities and responsibilities. I believe the time 
is coming when no citizen will be permitted to 
receive an income from his inherited or accumu- 
lated possessions greater than is good for him. 
You may say that 's the wildest sort of socialism. 
Perhaps it is. But it 's socialism looked at from 
a different angle from the platform orators — the 
angle of the individual. 

311 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"I don't believe a man's money should be taken 
away from him and distributed round for the sake 
of other people — but for the protection of the man 
himself. There 's got to be a pecuniary safety 
valve. Every dollar over a certain amount, just 
like every extra pound of steam in a boiler, is a 
thing of danger. We want health in the indi- 
vidual and in the state — not disease. 

"Let the amount of a man's income be five, ten, 
fifteen or twenty thousand dollars — the exact fig- 
ure does n't matter; but there is a limit at which 
wealth becomes a drag and a detriment instead of 
a benefit! I 'd base the legality of a confiscatory 
income tax on the constitutionality of any health 
regulation or police ordinance. People should n't 
be permitted to injure themselves — or have poi- 
son lying round. Certainly it 's a lesson that his- 
tory teaches on every page. 

"Besides everybody needs something to work 
for — to keep him fit — at least that 's the way it 
looks to me. Nations — ^let alone mere indi- 
viduals — ^have simply gone to seed, died of dry 
rot because they no longer had any stimulus. A 

312 



MY FUTURE 

fellow has got to have some idea in the back of his 
head as to what he 's after — and the harder it is 
for him to get it, the better, as a rule, it is for him. 
Good luck is the worst enemy a heap of people 
have. Misfortune spurs a man on, tries him out 
and develops him — makes him more human." 

"Ever played in hard luck^" I queried. 

"I? Sure, I have," answered Hastings cheer- 
fully. "And I would n't worry much if it came 
my way again. I could manage to get along 
pretty comfortably on less than half I 've got. I 
like my home; but we could be happy anywhere 
so long as we had ourselves and our health and a 
few books. However, I was n't thinking of my- 
self. I 've got a friend in the brokering business 
who says it 's the millionaires that do most of the 
worrying anyhow. Naturally a man with a pile 
of money has to look after it; but what puzzles me 
is why anybody should want it in the first place." 

He searched along a well-filled and disordered 
shelf of shabby books. 

"Here 's what William James says about it: 

" 'We have grown literally afraid to be poor. 

313 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

We despise any one who elects to be poor in order 
to simplify and save his inner life. We have lost 
the power of even imagining what the ancient 
idealization of poverty could have meant — the 
liberation from material attachments; the un- 
bribed soul; the manlier indifference; the paying 
our way by what we are or do, and not by what 
we have; the right to fling away our life at any 
moment irresponsibly — the more athletic trim, in 
short the moral fighting shape. ... It is certain 
that the prevalent fear of poverty among the edu- 
cated class is the worst moral disease from which 
our civilization suffers.' " 

"I guess he 's about right," I agreed. 

"That 's my idea exactly," answered Hastings. 
"As I look at it the curse of most of the people 
living on Fifth Avenue is that they 're perfectly 
safe. You could take away nine-tenths of what 
they 've got and they 'd still have about a hun- 
dred times more money than they needed to be 
comfortable. They're like a whole lot of fat 
animals in an inclosure — they 're fed three or four 
tinges a day, but the wire fence that protects them 



MY FUTURE 

from harm deprives them of any real liberty. Or 
they 're like goldfish swimming round and round 
in a big bowl. They can look through sort of 
dimly; but they can't get out! If they really 
knew, they 'd trade their security for their free- 
dom any time. 

"Perfect safety is n't an unmixed blessing by 
any means. Look at the photographs of the wild 
Indians — the ones that carried their lives in their 
hands every minute — and there 's something stern 
and noble about their faces. Put an Indian on a 
reservation and he takes to drinking whisky. It 
was the same way with the chaps that lived in 
the Middle Ages and had to wear shirts of chain- 
mail. It kept 'em guessing. That 's merely one 
phase of it. 

"The real thing to put the bite into life is hav- 
ing a Cause. People forget how to make sacri- 
fices — or become afraid to. After all, even dying 
is n't such a tremendous trick. Plenty of people 
have done it just for an idea — wanted to pray in 
their own way. But this modern way of living 
takes all the sap out of folks. They get an en- 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

tirely false impression of the relative values of 
things. It takes a failure or a death in the family 
to wake them up to the comparative triviality of 
the worth of money as compared, for instance, to 
human affection-^any of the real things of life. 

"I don't object to inequality of mere wealth in 
itself, because I would n't dignify money to that 
extent. Of course I do object to a situation where 
the rich man can buy life and health for his sick 
child and the poor man can't. Too many sick 
babies ! That '11 be attended to, all right, in 
time. I wouldn't take away one man's money 
for the sake of giving it to others — ^not a bit of 
it. But what I would do would be to put it out 
of a man's power to poison himself with money. 

"Suicide is made a crime under the law. How 
about moral and intellectual suicided It ought 
to be prevented for the sake of the state. No 
citizen should be allowed to stultify himself with 
luxury any more than he should be permitted to 
cut off his right hand. Excuse me for being didac- 
tic — but you said you 'd like to get my point of 
view and I 've tried to give it to you in a dis- 

316 



MY FUTURE 

jointed sort of way. I 'd sooner my son would 
have to work for his living than not, and I 'd 
rather he 'd spend his life contending with the 
forces of nature and developing the country than 
in quarreling over the division of profits that other 
men had earned." 

I had listened attentively to what Hastings had 
to say ; and, though I did not agree with all of it, 
I was forced to admit the truth of a large part. 
He certainly seemed to have come nearer to solv- 
ing the problem than I had ever been able to. 
Yet it appeared to my conservative mind shock- 
ingly socialistic and chimerical. 

"So you really think," I retorted, "that the state 
ought to pass laws which should prevent the ac- 
cumulation — or at least the retention — of large 
fortunes'?" 

Hastings smiled apologetically. 

"Well," he answered, "I don't know just how 
far I should advocate active governmental inter- 
ference, though it 's a serious question. You 're 
a thousand times better qualified to express an 
opinion on that than I am. 

317 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"When I spoke about health and police regu- 
lations I was talking metaphorically. I suppose 
my real idea is that the moral force of the com- 
munity — public opinion — ought to be strong 
enough to compel a man to live so that such laws 
would be unnecessary. His own public spirit, his 
conscience, or whatever you call it, should influ- 
ence him to use whatever he has above a certain 
amount for the common good — to turn it back 
where he got it, or somebody else got it, instead of 
demoralizing the whole country and setting an 
example of waste and extravagance. That kind 
of thing does an awful lot of harm. I see it all 
round me. But, of course, the worst sufferer is 
the man himself, and his own good sense ought to 
jack him up. 

"Still you can't force people to keep healthy. 
If a man is bound to sacrifice everything for money 
and make himself sick with it, perhaps he ought 
to be prevented." 

"Jim !" cried Mrs. Hastings, coming in with a 
pitcher of cider and some glasses. "I could hear 
you talking all the way out in the kitchen. I 'm 

318 



MY FUTURE 

sure you 've bored our guest to death. Why, the 
chestnuts are burned to a crisp I" 

"He hasn't bored me a bit," I answered; "in 
fact we are agreed on a great many things. How- 
ever, after I 've had a glass of that cider I must 
start back to town." 

"We 'd love to have you spend the night," she 
urged. "We 've a nice little guestroom over the 
library." 

The invitation was tempting, but I wanted to 
get away and think. Also it was my duty to look 
in on the bridge party before it became too sleepy 
to recognize my presence. I drank my cider, bade 
my hostess good night and walked to the station 
with Hastings. As we crossed the square to the 
train he said : 

"It was mighty good of you to come out here 
to see us and we both appreciate it. Hope you '11 
forgive my bluntness this morning and for shoot- 
ing off my mouth so much this evening." 

"My dear fellow," I returned, "that was what 
I came out for. You 've given me something to 
think about. I 'm thinking already. You 're 

319 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

quite right. You 'd be a fool to change places 
with anybody — let alone a miserable millionaire." 

In the smoker of the accommodation, to which 
I retired, I sat oblivious of my surroundings until 
we entered the tunnel. So far as I could see, 
Hastings had it on me at every turn — at thirty- 
three hundred a year — considerably less than half 
of what I paid out annually in servants' wages. 
And the exasperating part of it all was that, 
though I spent seventy-two thousand a year, I did 
not begin to be as happy as he was! Not by a 
jugful I Face to face with the simple comfort of 
the cottage I had just left, its sincerity and affec- 
tion, its thrifty self-respect, its wide interests, I 
confessed that I had not been myself genuinely 
contented since I left my mother's house for col- 
lege, thirty odd years before. I had become the 
willing victim of a materialistic society. 

I had squandered my life in a vain effort to 
purchase happiness with money — an utter impos- 
sibility, as I now only too plainly saw. I was 
poisoned with it, as Hastings had said — sick with 

320 



MY FUTURE 

it and sick of it. I was one of Hastings' chain- 
gangs of prosperous prisoners — ^millionaires shack- 
led together and walking in lockstep; one of his 
school of goldfish bumping their noses against the 
glass of the bowl in which they were confined by 
virtue of their inability to live outside the medium 
to which they were accustomed. 

I was through with it! From that moment I 
resolved to become a free man; living my own 
life; finding happiness in things that were worth 
while. I would chuck the whole nauseating busi- 
ness of valets and scented baths ; of cocktails, clubs 
and cards; of an unwieldy and tiresome household 
of lazy servants; of the ennui of heavy dinners; 
and of a family the members of which were 
strangers to each other. I could and would easily 
cut down my expenditures to not more than thirty 
thousand a year; and with the balance of my in- 
come I would look after some of those sick babies 
Hastings had mentioned. 

I would begin by taking a much smaller house 
and letting half the servants go, including my 
French cook. I had for a long time realized that 

321 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

we all ate too much. I would give up one of my 
motors and entertain more simply. We would 
omit the spring dash to Paris, and I would insist 
on a certain number of evenings each week which 
the family should spend together, reading aloud 
or talking over their various plans and interests. 
It did not seem by any means impossible in the 
prospect and I got a considerable amount of satis- 
faction from planning it all out. My life was 
to be that of a sort of glorified Hastings. After 
my healthy, peaceful day in the quiet country I 
felt quite light-hearted — as nearly happy as I 
could remember having been for years. 

It was raining when I got out at the Grand Cen- 
tral Station, and as I hurried along the platform to 
get a taxi I overtook an acquaintance of mine — 
a social climber. He gave me a queer look in re- 
sponse to my greeting and I remembered that I 
had on the old gray hat I had taken from the 
quick lunch. 

"I 've been off for a tramp in the country," I 
explained, resenting my own instinctive embar- 
rassment. 

322 



MY FUTURE 

"Ah ! Don't say I Did n't know you went in 
for that sort of thing I Well, good night I" 

He sprang into the only remaining taxi without 
asking me to share it and vanished in a cloud of 
gasoline smoke. I was in no mood for waiting; 
besides I was going to be democratic. I took a 
surface car up Lexington Avenue and stood be- 
tween the distended knees of a fat and somnolent 
Italian gentleman for thirty blocks. The car was 
intolerably stuffy and smelled strongly of wet um- 
brellas and garlic. By the time I reached the 
cross-street on which I lived it had begun to pour. 
I turned up my coat collar and ran to my house. 

Somehow I felt like a small boy as I threw my- 
self panting inside my own marble portal. My 
butler expressed great sympathy for my condition 
and smuggled me quickly upstairs. I fancy he 
suspected there was something discreditable about 
my absence. A pungent aroma floated up from 
the drawing room, where the bridge players were 
steadily at work. I confess to feeling rather 
dirty, wet and disreputable. 

'1 'm sorry, sir," said my butler as he turned 
323 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

on the electric switch in my bedroom, "but I 
did n't expect you back this evening, and so I 
told Martin he might go out." 

A wave of irritation, almost of anger, swept 
over me. Martin was my perfect valet. 

"What the devil did you do that for!" I 
snapped. 

Then, realizing my inconsistency, I was 
ashamed, utterly humiliated and disgusted with 
myself. This, then, was all that my resolution 
amounted to after all ! 

"I am very sorry, sir," repeated my butler. 
"Very sorry, sir, indeed. Shall I help you off 
with your things'?" 

"Oh, that 's all right !" I exclaimed, somewhat 
to his surprise. "Don't bother about me. I '11 
take care of myself." 

"Can't I bring you something^" he asked so- 
licitously. 

"No, thanks !" said I. "I don't need anything 
that you can give me I" 

"Very good, sir," he replied. "Good night. 



324 



MY FUTURE 

"Good night," I answered, and he closed the 
door noiselessly. 

I lit a cigarette and, tossing off my coat, sank 
into a chair. My mere return to that ordered ele- 
gance seemed to have benumbed my individuality. 
Downstairs thirty of our most intimate friends 
were amusing themselves at the cardtables, confi- 
dent that at eleven-thirty they would be served 
with supper consisting of salads, ice-cream and 
champagne. They would not hope in vain. If 
they did not get it — speaking broadly — they 
would not come again. They wanted us as we 
were — house, food, trappings — the whole layout. 
They meant well enough. They simply had to 
have certain things. If we changed our scale of 
living we should lose the acquaintance of these 
people, and we should have nobody in their place. 

We had grown into a highly complicated sys- 
tem, in which we had a settled orbit. This orbit 
was not susceptible of change unless we were will- 
ing to turn everything topsy-turvy. Everybody 
would suppose we had lost our money. And, not 
being brilliant or clever people, who paid their 

325 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

way as they went by making themselves lively and 
attractive, it would be assumed that we could not 
keep up our end; so we should be gradually left 
out. 

I said to myself that I ought not to care — that 
being left out was what I wanted; but, all the 
same, I knew I did care. You cannot tear your- 
self up by the roots at fifty unless you are pre- 
pared to go to a far country. I was not prepared 
to do that at a moment's notice. I, too, was used 
to a whole lot of things — was solidly imbedded in 
them. 

My very house was an overwhelming incubus. 
I was like a miserable snail, forever lugging my 
house round on my back — unable to shake it off. 
A change in our mode of life would not necessarily 
in itself bring my children any nearer to me; it 
would, on the contrary, probably antagonize them. 
I had sowed the seed and I was reaping the har- 
vest. My professional life I could not alter. I 
had my private clients — ^my regular business. Be- 
sides there was no reason for altering it. I con- 
ducted it honorably and well enough. 

326 



MY FUTURE 

Yet the calm consideration of those very diffi- 
culties in the end only demonstrated the clearer 
to me the perilous state in which I was. The 
deeper the bog, the more my spirit writhed to be 
free. Better, I thought, to die struggling than 
gradually to sink down and be suffocated beneath 
the mire of apathy and self-indulgence. 

Hastings' little home — or something — ^had 
wrought a change in me. I had gone through 
some sort of genuine emotional experience. It 
seemed impossible to reform my mode of life and 
thought, but it was equally incredible that I 
should fall back into my old indifference. Sit- 
ting there alone in my chamber I felt like a man 
in a nightmare, who would give his all to be able 
to rise, yet whose limbs were immovable, held by 
some subtle and cruel power. I had read in nov- 
els about men agonized by remorse and indeci- 
sion. I now experienced those sensations my- 
self. I discovered they were not imaginary 
states. 

My meditations were interrupted by the en- 
trance of my wife, who, with an anxious look on 

327 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

her face, inquired what was the matter. The but- 
ler had said I seemed indisposed ; so she had slipped 
away from our guests and come up to see for her- 
self. She was in full regalia— elaborate gown, 
pearls, aigret. 

"There 's nothing the matter with me," I an- 
swered, though I know full well I lied — I was 
poisoned. 

"Well, that 's a comfort, at any rate !" she re- 
plied, amiably enough. 

"Where 's Tom?" I asked wearily. 

"I have n't any idea," she said frankly. "You 
know he almost never comes home." 

"And the girls?" 

"Visiting the Devereuxs at Staatsburg," she 
answered. "Aren't you coming down for some 
bridge?" 

"No," I said. "To tell you the truth I never 
want to see a pack of cards again. I want to cut 
the game. I 'm sick of our life and the useless 
extravagance. I want a change. Let 's get rid 
of the whole thing — take a smaller house — ^have 
fewer servants. Think of the relief I" 

328 



MY FUTURE 

"What's the matter*?" she cried sharply. 
"Have you lost money?" 

Money ! Money ! 

"No," I said, "I have n't lost money — I 've lost 
heart!" 

She eyed me distrustfully. 

"Are you crazy *?" she demanded. 

"No," I answered. "I don't think I am." 

"You act that way," she retorted. "It's a 
funny time to talk about changing your mode of 
life — right in the middle of a bridge party! 
What have you been working for all these years? 
And where do I come in? You can go to your 
clubs and your office — anywhere; but all I 've got 
is the life you have taught me to enjoy! Tom is 
grown up and never comes near me. And the 
girls — why, what do you think would happen to 
them if you suddenly gave up your place in so- 
ciety? They 'd never get married so long as they 
lived. People would think you 'd gone bankrupt ! 
Really" — ^her eyes filled and she dabbed at them 
with a Valenciennes handkerchief — "I think it 
too heartless of you to come in this way — like 

329 



THE '^GOLDFISH" 

a skeleton at the feast — and spoil my eve- 
ning!" 

I felt a slight touch of remorse. I had broached 
the matter rather roughly. I laid my hand on 
her shoulder — ^now so round and matronly, once 
so slender. 

"Anna," I said as tenderly as I could, "suppose 
I did give it all up?" 

She rose indignantly to her feet and shook off 
my hand. 

"You'd have to get along without me!" she 
retorted; then, seeing the anguish on my face, she 
added less harshly: "Take a brandy-and-soda 
and go to bed. I 'm sure you 're not quite your- 
self." 

I was struck by the chance significance of her 
phrase — "Not quite yourself." No; ever since I 
had left the house that morning I had not been 
quite myself. I had had a momentary glimpse — 
had for an instant caught the glint of an angel's 
wing — but it was gone. I was almost myself — 
my old self; yet not quite. 

"I didn't mean to be unkind," I muttered, 
330 



MY FUTURE 

"Don't worry about me. I've merely had a 
vision of what might have been, and it 's dis- 
gusted me. Go on down to the bridge fiends. 
I'll be along shortly — ^if you'll excuse my 
clothes." 

'Toor boy!" she sighed. "You're tired out! 
No; don't come down — in those clothes I" 

I laughed a hollow laugh when she had gone. 
Really there was something humorous about it all. 
What was the use even of trying*? I did not seem 
even to belong in my own house unless my clothes 
matched the wall paper! I lit cigarette after 
cigarette, staring blankly at my silk pajamas laid 
out on the bed. 

I could not change things! It was too late. 
I had brought up my son and daughters to live 
in a certain kind of way, had taught them that 
luxuries were necessities, had neglected them — 
had ruined them perhaps; but I had no moral 
right now to annihilate that life — and their 
mother's — without their consent. They might 
be poor things; but, after all, they were my own. 

331 



THE ^GOLDFISH" 

They were free, white and twenty-one. And I 
knew they would simply think me mad ! 

I had a fixed place in a complicated system, 
with responsibilities and duties I was morally 
bound to recognize. I could not chuck the whole 
business without doing a great deal of harm. My 
life was not so simple as all that. Any change — 
if it could be accomplished at all — would have to 
be a gradual one and be brought about largely by 
persuasion. Could it be accomplished'? 

It now seemed insuperably difficult. I was 
bound to the wheel — and the habits of a lifetime, 
the moral pressure of my wife and children, the 
example of society, and the force of superficial 
public opinion and expectation were spinning it 
round and round in the direction of least resist- 
ance. As well attempt to alter my course as to 
steer a locomotive off the track! I could not 
ditch the locomotive, for I had a trainload of pas- 
sengers! And yet — 

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. I 
— successful^ Yes, success had been mine; but 
success was failure — naught else— failure, abso- 



MY FUTURE 

lute and unmitigated I I had lost my wife and 
family, and my home had become the resort of a 
crew of empty-headed coxcombs. 

I wondered whether they were gone. I looked 
at the clock. It was half-past twelve — Sunday 
morning. I opened my bedroom door and crept 
downstairs. No; they were not gone — they had 
merely moved on to supper. 

My library was in the front of the house, across 
the hall from the drawing room, and I went in 
there and sank into an armchair by the fire. The 
bridge party was making a great to-do and its 
strident laughter floated up from below. By con- 
trast the quiet library seemed a haven of refuge. 
Here were the books I might have read — which 
might have been my friends. Poor fool that I 
was ! 

I put out my hand and took down the first it 
encountered — John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
It was a funny old volume — a priceless early 
edition given me by a grateful client whom I had 
extricated from some embarrassment. I had 
never read it, but I knew its general trend. It was 

333 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

about some imaginary miserable who, like myself, 
wanted to do things differently. I took a cigar 
out of my pocket, lit it and, opening the book 
haphazard, glanced over the pages in a desultory 
fashion. 

''^hat is that which I seek for^ even to he rid 
of this heavy Burden,' but get it off myself^ I can- 
not; nor is there any man in our country that can 
take it off my shoulders — " 

So the Pilgrim had a burden too! I turned 
back to the beginning and read how Christian, the 
hero, had been made aware of his perilous con- 
dition. 

''In this plight therefore he went home^ and re- 
frained himself as long as he could ^ that his Wife 
and Children should not perceive his distress^ hut 
he could not he silent long^ hecause that his trou- 
ble increased: Wherefore at length he brake his 
mind to his Wife and Children; and thus he 
began to talk to them: 'Oh^ my dear Wife,' said 
he, 'and you the Children of my bowels, 7, your 
dear Friend, am in myself undone by reason of a 
Burden that lieth hard upon me,' , . , At this 

334 



MY FUTURE 

his Relations were sore amazed; not for that they 
believed that what he had said to them was true^ 
but because they thought that some frenzy dis- 
temper had got into his head; therefore^ it draw- 
ing toward nighty and they hoping that sleep 
might settle his brains^ with all haste they got him 
to bed: But the night was as troublesome to him as 
the day; wherefore^ instead of sleeping^ he spent 
it in sighs and tears'' 

Surely this Pilgrim was strangely like myself! 
And, though sorely beset, he had struggled on his 
way. 

''Hast thou a Wife and Children? 

""Tes^ but I am so laden with this Burden that 
I cannot take that pleasure in them as formerly; 
methinks I am as if I had noneT 

Tears filled my eyes and I laid down the book. 
The bridge party was going home. I could hear 
them shouting good-bys in the front hall and my 
wife's shrill voice answering Good night ! From 
outside came the toot of horns and the whir of 
the motors as they drew up at the curb. One by 
one the doors slammed, the glass rattled and they 

335 



THE "GOLDFISH'' 

thundered off. The noise got on my nerves and, 
taking my book, I crossed to the deserted drawing 
room, the scene of the night's social carnage. The 
sight was enough to sicken any man ! Eight tables 
covered with half-filled glasses ; cards everywhere 
— the floor littered with them; chairs pushed hel- 
ter-skelter and one overturned; and from a dozen 
ash-receivers the slowly ascending columns of in- 
cense to the great God of Chance. On the middle 
table lay a score card and pencil, a roll of bills, 
a pile of silver, and my wife's vanity box, with its 
chain of pearls and diamonds. 

Fiercely I resolved again to end it all — at any 
cost. I threw open one of the windows, sat my- 
self down by a lamp in a corner, and found the 
place where I had been reading. Christian had 
just encountered Charity. In the midst of their 
discussion I heard my wife's footsteps in the hall ; 
the portieres rustled and she entered. 

"Well !" she exclaimed. "I thought you had 
gone to bed long ago. I had good luck to-night. 
I won eight hundred dollars ! How are you feel- 
ing?" 

336 



MY FUTURE 

"Anna," I answered, "sit down a minute. I 
want to read you something." 

"Go ahead!" she said, lighting a cigarette and 
throwing herself into one of the vacant chairs. 

''lihen said Charity to Christian: Have you a 
family? Are you a married man? 

"Christian: / have a Wife and . . . Chil- 
dren, 

"Charity: And why did you not bring them 
along with you? 

''Then Christian we'pt and said: Oh^ how will- 
ingly would I have done it, but they were all of 
them utterly averse to my going on Pilgrim- 
age. 

"Charity: But you should have talked to 
them, and have endeavored to have shown them 
the danger of being behind. 

"Christian.* So I did, and told them also 
what God had shewed to me of the destruction of 
our City; but I seemed to them as one that mocked, 
and they believed me not. 

"Charity : And did you pray to God that He 
would bless your counsel to them?. 

337 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"Christian : Yes, and that with much affec- 
tion; for you must think that my Wife and poor 
Children were very dear unto me. 

"Charity : But did you tell them of your own 
sorrow and fear of destruction? — for I suppose 
that destruction was visible enough to you, 

"Christian: Tes, over and over, and over. 
They might also see my fears in my countenance, 
in my tears, and also in my trembling under the 
apprehension of the Judgment that did hang over 
our heads; but all was not sufficient to prevail with 
them to come with me, 

"Charity: But what could they say for 
themselves, why they come not? 

"Christian: Why, my Wife was afraid of 
losing Jthts World, and my Children were given to 
the foolish Delights of youth; so, what by one 
thing and what by another, they left me to wan- 
der in this manner alone." 

An unusual sound made me look up. My wife 
was weeping, her head on her arms among the 
money and debris of the card-table. 

"I — I did n't know," she said in a choked, half- 

338 



MY FUTURE 

stifled voice, "that you really meant what you said 
upstairs." 

"I mean it as I never have meant anything 
since I told you that I loved you, dear," I an- 
swered gently. 

She raised her face, wet with tears. 

"That was such a long time ago!" she sobbed. 
"And I thought that all this was what you 
wanted." She glanced round the room. 

"I did — once," I replied; "but I don't want it 
any longer. We can't live our lives over again; 
but" — and I went over to her — "we can try to 
do a little better from now on." 

She laid her head on my arm and took my hand 
in hers. 

"What shall we do'?" she asked. 

"We must free ourselves from our Burden," 
said I; "break down the wall of money that shuts 
us in from other people, and try to pay our way 
in the world by what we are and do rather than 
by what we have. It may be hard at first; but 
it 's worth while — for all of us." 

She disengaged one hand and wiped her eyes. 
339 



THE "GOLDFISH" 

"I '11 help all I can," she whispered. 
"That's what I want!" cried I, and my heart 
leaped. 

Again I saw the glint of the angel's wing! 



THE END 



340 



